Tot School Tuesday: Tot Schooling When You Have Older Kids, Too!

When you have older kids that you're homeschooling, it's easy for Tot School to fall by the wayside. Having to teach complicated math concepts and read chapter books and perform science experiments and review what the parts of speech are...it's easy to see how your toddler and preschooler's school time can get pushed to the back burner. It's happened to me before! Having high schoolers, middle schoolers, elementary ages kids, and a toddler is not for the faint of heart.

However, I believe Tot School is important and should not be skipped on a regular basis. Is "school" necessary for a toddler? No. Will they "fall behind" if they don't do Tot School? Again, no. I actually believe that formal preschool is not necessary and can sometimes do more harm than good.

So why is Tot School important?

Tot School is just that focused time with your toddler, time you take out of your day to sit with, work with, and learn with your child. This time should not be spent with flashcard drills and inappropriate worksheets. It should not be a time of stress or frustration for your child or for you. It should be a time of learning to color, tear paper, use a glue-stick, explore different sensory materials, read great books, sing songs, and fine-tune those fine-motor skills.

Sounds fun and easy, right?

It really is - as long as you make sure it happens regularly. Here are my tips for making sure Tot School happens when you have older kids, too.

transferring cotton balls

Do it First Thing

When I make Tot School the first thing on my agenda for the day, it almost always happens. It's so easy for it to get pushed back and pushed back and then forgotten about when you get busy with other things. I try to do Tot School with Zeke while the big kids are still doing their morning chores and getting ready for the day, usually around 7:30 or 8:00. The time will vary for you according to your regular schedule but stop and think about what you do in the morning. Is there a time you can set aside for Tot School? Maybe while you're drinking your coffee, or right after breakfast while your bigger kids clean the kitchen? I set aside around 30 minutes for Tot School, sometimes it takes less time and sometimes more, but I have found that half an hour is a good average for us.

counting bears are always a favorite

Have it Ready the Night Before

Gather all of the books, supplies, and activities you are planning for the next day's Tot School. I have a shelf in my dining room dedicated to Tot School trays, books, and supplies. Set up the tot tray, print out the worksheet, lay out the puzzle, find the scissors and put it all in one place. You may have a shelf you can use, or an empty basket to corral everything in. Having everything ready and in one place makes it so much easier to ensure that Tot School happens. You can't use the excuse that you don't have time to find something - it's all right there!

b is for bunny week

Keep Your Resources Organized

Printing, laminating, and storing resources in an organized way will help keep you on track with Tot School. I try to print and laminate resources before I will need them. I printed and laminated the entire set of alphabet pattern blocks and playdough mats at the same time, so I don't have to wait for my laminator to heat up in the morning and laminate a sheet before Tot School. I keep them all together so I can pull what I need the night before.

I have a huge shelf with bins where I keep all of our Tot School and Preschool resources - puzzles, games, lacing toys, fine motor tools, math manipulatives, baskets, and trays. It's so easy knowing where everything is! I also organize within the bins - plastic bags and small plastic containers help contain pattern blocks, linking cubes, counting bears, and magnets. It's much easier for me to say "yes" to a purchase when I know I have somewhere to store it and that it will get used many times. I've had some of these resources for more than ten years!

Keep Your Supply Cabinet Stocked

Whatever you use for arts and crafts supplies, be it a cabinet or closet or shelf, keep it stocked with everything you'll need. Crayons, markers, scissors, glue sticks, colored paper, stickers, dot markers, dried beans, paper plates...anything you think you'll need. It's best to stock up on art supplies in the month of July - all of the back-to-school sales are happening! When you start running low on something, pick them it up on your next run to the store. Look ahead at some of the activities you're planning to do with your child and make sure you have all of the necessary items necessary. This makes it so much easier to plan activities or do a spontaneous activity! When you put something off for a few days because you don't have what you need, you're not likely to do it. Or in my experience, I'm not likely to come back to it!

buttons are so versatile

These four tips are sure to help you ensure that Tot School or Preschool time happens with your little one. Which one do you struggle with the most?

Blogging from A-Z - Arena

I wasn't sure what topic I was going to use for the first letter in this Blogging from A-Z series, but Friday night my daughter was in her first rodeo and the word arena just kept coming to my mind.

Mercie is 14 years old and loves her horses. Last year, our church youth group worked in the concession stand at the annual rodeo in our town. Mercie volunteered to help and got to watch part of the rodeo. When she saw the girls barrel racing, she was really interested! She came home that night and told me, "I want to barrel race!" 

I knew she was serious, so I called my oldest daughter's friend, Sarah, who does barrel race, and talked to her about Mercie. She was going to college in two months, but she agreed to help Mercie learn the basics of barrel racing over the summer. We had a few horses, but the kids didn't really ride them much. Domino is a gentle, stubborn, and 20-year old horse and the only horse we had that she could work with. 

saddling up Domino

The first thing Sarah did was teach Mercie the basics of horse care and how to catch and saddle her own horse. This was the best thing ever. Mercie is a really quick learner, surprising even Sarah! She worked with Domino for several weeks, learning how to saddle and ride. They tried to teach Domino how to run barrels, but he is too old and stubborn. Sarah started taking Mercie to her house to work with her horses. 

In the meantime, we were looking for a good barrel-racing horse for Mercie to use. Barrel-racing horses are expensive, like $10,000 as an average price for an average barrel horse around here. We had another horse in our pasture, Butterfinger, that is only a few years old. He was not broken yet, but Mercie separated him and put him in a different pasture. We also got him cut (made him a gelding) to help calm him down. She started working with him, and now she has him where she can put and tighten a saddle on him! She hasn't ridden him yet but I know she will soon. She plans to train him to be a barrel horse too!

working with Butterfinger

Anyway, Sarah went to college in August, and Mercie was on her own with her horses. She had learned how to take care of them and work with them, and she took the initiative every day with them. We took her to ride a horse some locals were selling that is an awesome barrel-racing horse and she fell in love with him. The owners wanted $10,000 for him and we were praying about it before we decided to buy him. Once we made the decision to go ahead and buy the horse, they had sold it to someone else. Mercie was really devastated, but I told her that the right horse was out there waiting for her!

Meanwhile my dad was talking to his friend who has roping horses about Mercie, and his friend told my dad to bring her over day. He wasn't trying to sell one his horses, but he had one that was a great 12-year-old paint horse he was willing to part with to the right person. Mercie went over and rode Lil Bit and knew that was the horse she wanted. Lil Bit wasn't a barrel horse, but she had been a roping horse so she knew rodeo and was trainable. 

riding in the Queen's Contest

We got a great deal on this roping horse (they can also be super expensive) because the owner was friends with my dad and also was impressed with Mercie. He didn't have time to ride and rope on her anymore, so he was willing to sell her to someone that he knew would use her. We brought Lil Bit home and she began training her to run barrels a month or so before Christmas. She works with Lil Bit every day - she never has to be reminded to do anything. Mercie has learned how to train her to barrel race by watching YouTube videos and talking to some friends about it.

Everyday Mercie works with Lil Bit and has trained her to run the barrels. We've been taking her to some Play Days at the arena in our town where Mercie has gotten some more practice in front of people and in an actual arena. She loves it so much! She even rode in her first rodeo last night. She had a 20.805 second run which is awesome for her first time! She was in 5th place. The winner ran an 18.2, so she wasn't too far behind. All of the girls running have been running barrels since they were young, and she literally just got started. She was very encouraged and is already looking for more rodeos to enter!

before the rodeo

running barrels in the rodeo

Owning and training a horse has been such a good outlet for Mercie. She spends hours with her horses each day and takes 100% care of them. She even called the vet and scheduled a Coggin's test (needed to bring your horse to arenas) on her own. She keeps her saddles cleaned and oiled. She is saving up for a barrel racing saddle she really wants. She used her own money to buy one of Sarah's old barrel saddles ($200), but she has her eyes on a really nice one right now! 

She has also met some great friends through barrel racing! Everyone in the rodeo circle around here really wants to help her and gives her plenty of good advice and tips. She is even going to a Rodeo Camp next week where she'll be learning more about barrel racing! She gets to take Lil Bit with her, too.

Kasidy (left) and Mercie (right) at a Play-Day

I am so proud of everything she has learned this past year and how far she has come. She has taken on so much responsibility and really lived up to it. I don't remind her to do a single thing! It's exciting to think about how far she is going to go with this. We're looking into more rodeos for her this summer. The word arena has such a positive connection in my mind and heart now. 

Feel free to link up your posts each week! We will be going one letter a week through the alphabet. I'm anxious to see what your letter A word is!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Friday Favorites - Athletic Banquet

Athletic Banquet

Eli had his annual athletic banquet Thursday night. It was a lot of fun and catered by a local restaurant. He won the All District First Team award for varsity basketball (along with his best friend, Landyn) and the Athlete Role Model award. I was so proud of him for winning First Team (but not surprised - he is a great basketball player), but I was even more proud of the Role Model award. He makes awesome grades, never gets in trouble, is a team player, and a favorite of the kids and teachers at school. So proud of him. I cannot believe he will be a senior next year!

We cleaned up nice! Peep that 22 week belly.

Eli and his best friend

Eli and his basketball coach 

Gardening

We got lots of rain Tuesday and Wednesday, but we got out in the muddy garden on Thursday anyway. Mercie tied up the tomato plants some more. Silas and Titus tilled the grass between the rows and on the 'spacer' rows. The rain really makes the grass grow! We also picked several huge squash and cucumbers. I'm planning to pickle these this weekend.

Play Day at the Arena

Last Saturday evening Mercie had Play Day at the arena. This is a lot of fun and she gets to practice some events with Lil Bit, her horse. She ran her fastest time on the barrels, but they knocked one over which added five seconds to her total time. She still tied for second place overall and had a blast. We all went and watched her. The Rodeo is tonight and tomorrow night, and it's her first time competing in an actual rodeo. She's very nervous but also very excited.

Mercie (in the hat) and her best friend goofing off

We rarely get pictures together

They're both racing barrels tonight!

Summer Break 

It's so nice to have summer break from homeschooling, and now Eli is officially on summer break from school, too. He has a job at the same place he worked last summer, cutting, stacking, and hauling sod. I have really enjoyed being able to wake up and do what I want to do instead of preparing for and beginning homeschool lessons. I love homeschooling - I really do! - but the break is always refreshing.

Titus and our old, old horse Domino

Silas and I play Rummikub quite a bit!

I'm 22 weeks pregnant now with Zoey and really popping out! This is going to be a long, hot summer being pregnant in Louisiana! How was your week?

Tot School Tuesdays: Using Trays

We've always used trays in our tot school activities! When Zeke was around 16 months old, we began tot school. I would have one activity per day for him to explore and I always presented these activities on trays. There are several reasons I think using trays is helpful for toddlers and preschoolers.

Presentation

I know you think your child is just a toddler so why would they care about presentation? Trust me - it matters! When Zeke would wake up to a beautiful tray full of an inviting activity, he was more excited to sit and engage with that activity. Interesting presentations always grabbed his attention and spurred on his creativity. 

The first tray I used was from the Dollar General that I purchased for around $5.00. It worked so well that I purchased another! I have also bought some from Amazon and repurposed Melissa and Doug wooden trays from our toys. Some of the Melissa and Doug trays make really great sorting and classifying trays with their different compartments! I've also picked up some plastic trays meant for chips and dip from the Dollar Tree that we have used for sorting.

Containment 

Besides an aesthetic element, the tray does have a helpful purpose. It keeps the activity (mostly) contained to the tray. Instead of being spread all over a table or the floor or both, your child will likely keep all of the pieces inside the tray. When Zeke began using his tot trays, one thing I taught him was that the activity needed to stay on the tray. It didn't take long for him to understand, even though he was a year and half old. This really cut down on the mess and made it easy to put everything back when we were finished.

Availability

Having the activity contained on a tray allows me to leave the activity out for most of the day. Zeke will usually come back to an activity several times a day. When he is finished playing, the pieces to the activity are still on the tray so I can leave it on a table or move it to his shelf. He knows he is able to go back to the activity to play some more whenever he wants to. I don't feel the need to clean up the activity because it's on one tray and I don't have to worry about leaving a mess just so he can repeat an activity at his leisure. 

As we have moved more from tot school into a modified preschool, I still find the trays helpful. I love setting up tray activities for him to do and he loves having the activities on the trays. I usually put several trays on a shelf for him now as opposed to the one tray a day he did when he was younger. I feel like learning how to use a tot tray when he was younger has really helped prepare him for a shelf of activities now that he's a bit older. He knows he is allowed one tray at a time and that he must make sure all of the parts go back on the tray if he takes them off before placing the tray back on the shelf.

Tot trays are so much fun to set up and so helpful for keeping your toddler busy. Do you use tot trays with your child?

Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum (English Grammar Skills) - TOS Review

 Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Finding a language arts program we love has been a hard struggle for us! We've tried many different programs and curriculum over the years. When I was given the chance to review Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum (PAC) I was excited to try yet another language arts program!

I received the English Grammar Skills program for 8th graders. Silas will be entering 7th grade, but when I looked at the samples I knew it would be a good fit skill-wise for him. This program teaches your child the eight parts of speech, grammar, and writing skills and counts as one high school transcript credit (which we obviously aren't doing since he is in sixth grade).

We received five soft-cover textbooks and five soft-cover activity books along with the loose-leaf Teacher Recourse Kit. The TRK is hole-punched and ready to go into a binder. The Teacher Resource Kit contains the black line masters for the:

• Course Introduction
• What & How Student Will Learn...
• Tables of Contents for the Textbooks
• Activity Answer Keys
• Section Quizzes 
• Chapter Tests
• Quiz Answer Keys
• Chapter Test Answer Keys

There are 75 total lessons in this course with 15 section quizzes and five chapter tests. Each textbook and activity books covers 15 lessons. Each lesson begins with a short story and vocabulary words. Following the short story is the lesson to read which covers the grammar concepts being learned. There is a life principle following each lesson which is fun to read!

The activity book corresponds with the textbook. There are several pages of questions for each lesson. The first set of questions are reading comprehension questions from the short story. Next are vocabulary questions and then questions on the grammar lesson. The questions are mostly fill in the blank, multiple choice, and true and false. Silas wrote straight in the activity guide instead of using an extra notebook. We found he had plenty of room right in the workbook. I also allowed him to shorten some of the answers - writing an "s" for singular and a "p" for plural, for example.

We really enjoyed using this curriculum. It didn't take us very long each day, around 15-20 minutes, but we didn't complete an entire lesson in a day either. Silas would read the short story and vocabulary words and then answer those questions one day. Then he would read the lesson the next day and do the questions over the course of the week.  I sat with the Teacher's Resource Kit beside him. He would read the questions and then answer aloud while I checked his answer before he wrote it down. 

I plan to continue this with him next year as his grammar program. He felt like the concepts were explained well and that he had plenty of practice in the activity books. I like how it's a no-nonsense grammar program! The grammar rules are made plain enough for Silas to understand. The activity book contained many different ways of practicing the grammar so I feel like Silas was really cementing what he learned in his mind. I also like the short stories and positive messages expressed in each one. Having a few comprehension questions was nice, so I could gauge what Silas was retaining from his reading. I also appreciated the vocabulary words because it was nice to fit in a few extra each lesson!

I feel like English Grammar Skills could be successfully used in 7th and 8th grade for a complete grammar program. The full course in print is $97.95, but it's also available in a digital download for $40.96. I feel like this is a great deal for a full year's course! Check out what the other reviewers thought about this product and others by Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum by clicking the banner below.

Week in Review and Friday Favorites - Ultrasounds and Summer Reading

Ultrasound of Zoey!

It was so exciting to go to my 20-week anatomy scan. Even though I knew Zoey was a girl from my 10-week bloodwork, I haven't really had a good ultrasound until now. It lasted about half an hour (since I'm high risk they had to check everything)  and everything looks just perfect. She is so adorable (in her mama's eyes anyway) and I can't wait to kiss those chubby little cheeks. 

Summer School Hour

We did our summer school hour several days this week (I'm trying to ease them into it.) Titus did the most work using his Critical Thinking Co. Language Smarts workbook. He did some activities on syllables. The kids also read their library books each day. Next week I plan to really make the kids work during their Summer School Hour!

First Library Trip of the Summer

Sadly I found out that my library won't be doing a summer reading program (again). I told the kids I would pay them a dollar week if they read a book each week and an extra dollar for writing or drawing something about their books. They each found fantastic looking books, and Zeke had a blast in the library for the first time in forever.

Monday

Monday I went to the doctor for my ultrasound. My mom went with me and we did a bit of shopping beforehand. My doctor's office is an hour and a half from my house and is in the same town as the mall and other shopping places. We bought Zoey some outfits of course. I also got the other kids some shirts and shorts for summer. We ate at Applebee's afterwards. My mother-in-law watched Mercie, Silas, Titus, and Zeke. Eli was at school and then had to go to work afterwards.

Tuesday

Tuesday I took Zeke to speech lessons an hour away. I was so exhausted from the trip to the doctor the day before, but he is doing so well in speech I hated to miss it. Titus rode with me and we got Burger King on the way home. The Cornerstone Academy called to discuss Mercie's enrollment in their private school next year (thankfully she got in!) and I had to pay the book fee. 

Tuesday night Titus had Tae-Kwon-Do. While he was in TKD, I got my Walmart pick up order for the week. 

Titus is the yellow belt.

Wednesday

Wednesday I took Zeke and Silas to the doctor in our town. Zeke began complaining of an ear ache on Tuesday and woke up in the middle of the night with ear pain. He has a middle ear infection, but is taking his medicine like a champ! Silas has staph infection on some sores on his legs and folliculitis on his stomach and chest area. He was given a steroid shot, antibiotics, and steroid cream. 

We had a graduation party at church for one of our seniors (the second week in a row). We went to that and the kids played nine-square outside. Mercie and Eli go to a different church on Wednesday nights that has a much larger youth group (and they have lots of friends there). 

Thursday

Thursday we played outside much of the morning. We ran to the Dollar General to get some decorations for tables in the fellowship hall at church and ran by there and decorated those for Memorial Day. We came back and the kids had some farm chores to attend to (a tree fell on a gate and they had to replace it). Titus had TKD again. Eli was an usher at his school's graduation. We picked up one of Mercie's friends to come have a sleepover. We bought some stuff to tie-dye and Zeke got a head start on it.

Friday

I'm not sure what our plans are today. Hopefully I can do a lot of resting. 

How was your week? 

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Our Summer Library Book Choices - Week One

I found out our library will not be having a summer reading program. It's pretty disappointing, but I told the kids I wanted them to read one book each week this summer. For more incentive, I told them I would give them each $1.00 when they read their books and another dollar if they either draw a picture of a scene or character, write a paragraph about the book, or show me about the book in another creative way. The potential to earn $2.00 a week just for reading excited them all. I figured I would post our weekly books we pick from the library here!

Mercie - 14 years old

This is a mystery that looks really good! So good in fact, that I told Mercie I wanted to read it, too. She's a few chapters in and said it's already interesting.

Silas - 11 years old

This is the sequel to Old Yeller about his son, Savage Sam. Silas is really enjoying this book already and has read aloud a part to me he thought was funny. I've heard him laughing out loud at the book, too. I love when they do that!

Titus - 9 years old

This book is a bit ambitious for Titus with almost 200 pages, but he has read the first few chapters and is getting into it. He wants to read all of the books in this series. He reads really well, but has a hard time focusing on what he is reading (ADHD) so I'm proud of him for choosing this book.

Zeke - 3 years old 

We've read this a few times since he's brought it home and he loves it. It's a rhyming book about why you shouldn't bring a dragon to recess but they end up giving him a chance on the playground. I'm pretty sure Zeke doesn't know what recess even is, but he gets the general idea of the book. He loved being able to choose a book on his own.

What are your kids reading this week?

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