Wordless Wednesday- Joy

Never mind the teething cheeks! I have to admit this little ensemble may be my favorite of all of Kylee's Christmas gifts. Wondering where it came from?

Let's just say it came from an auntie who is seriously outnumbered at her own house!

For more Wordless Wednesday, head over to 5 Minutes for Mom.

To see more of Kylee's stunning performances (and hear Daddy's stunning vocal accompaniment), watch below!

Tweaking

I'm tweaking. I'm making those little fine tuned adjustments that can be the difference between tears and triumphs during the day. I'm checking our progress (specifically my progress) against the goals we set for this school year.

Although we feel strongly about the effectiveness of a Montessori education, we feel equally strong that it is unwise to choose a course of action without stopping to evaluate what is working... and (possibly more importantly) what is not.

Last year, I will admit I was mostly flying by the seat of my pants when it came to homeschooling. I recognized that, and way back at the beginning of this school year I set myself goals to help me be more organized and intentional. You can read that post here.

I think it is important not to just evaluate our children, but to evaluate ourselves. Our children may be meeting their goals, but are we? How are we doing on this homeschooling journey? As moms, we set the tone for our homeschooling success and failures.

Here is how I am doing based on my initial goals.

• To be more organized in my record keeping.- I am thus far achieving this goal, the next step is to get my materials better organized (specifically my supply closet)!
• To use the Montessori curriculum more accurately and use fewer distracting activities.- This is an area we are tweaking. We are finding that there are aspects of the curriculum that are not working for our family (specifically science and history) and are working on a plan for the rest of this year and next year. We have already adopted a Montessori friendly spelling curriculum and plan to continue using Handwriting Without Tears.
• To focus on presenting the entire preschool curriculum to Caleb.- This is day by day. In all honesty there is nothing I present that he doesn't learn in about five minutes and I'm struggling with pushing too hard (as I believe a 4 year old should not be doing high level academics at the expense of their free exploration time) but not boring him with things he already understands either. I am finding him to be very non-chalant about his schooling. He can do it (and will without argument), but he really doesn't care one way or the other. He has already mastered all of what I had planned for him for this school year and is moving into typical kindergarten and even first grade works. I think challenging him is going to be a challenge for me as we continue on this journey!
• Increase the faith life of our family through home school and family activities- This is the area I want to work on the most this second half of our school year. We have done some things, but I truly believe we can do more.
• Find a homeschooling co-op to get involved with- Check. Done. Love them!

I look at this list and I can say I feel good about where we are today. I feel like we are all still learning together. We have neither fallen completely short of our goals nor mastered them completely. That, to me, is one of the best measures of a well-set goal.

Regardless, I will continue tweaking. Remaining alert to changes and challenges that may come about.

How is your homeschooling year going? Do you have goals to measure yourself against? How are you doing? Is there anything you need to tweak?

SpellQuizer Review & Giveaway

I recently had the opportunity to review SpellQuizzer, a spelling review program. SpellQuizzer allows parents to record a child's spelling list and then quizzes the child on their words. In the event parents do not have access to a microphone, they can create lists using definitions instead, giving the child to opportunity to work on vocabulary as well.

We tried out the program for the month of December in conjunction with our regular program. We use Words Their Way, which does not use a weekly list of words but rather a series of studies based on a set of spelling rules. I only usually give spelling tests once every 6-8 weeks, so the idea of a weekly list was new to my kids. I focused on words using blends (the current topic in Aidan's spelling curriculum) and also on sight words.

Both boys found the program easy to operate and enjoyed being able to do some of their work on the computer each day. They even asked to do spelling over Christmas vacation and then got into a fight (they are brothers) about who got to go first!

What I like
*SpellQuizzer is easily adaptable to work with any traditional or nontraditional spelling curriculum. Even a parent with no spelling list could create their own lists using sight words or seasonal words that a child is struggling with.
*I liked the free downloadable lists. This saved me time because many of the words (especially in the Dolch Words sections) are words that Aidan forgets.
*I appreciated the alphabet list for preschoolers. It was fun having Caleb ask to do his spelling.
*The price. $29.95 is an excellent price for a material that will work for multiple students across multiple ages. There are not many curriculum resources that are that affordable for families!

What I think would make it better
*I wish it worked on Mac.
*Because SpellQuizzer didn't run on our kid computer, the boys had to use our PC laptop. This wasn't a problem, but the windows were a little bit small for young eyes. The ability to resize the quiz window would solve this problem.
*I wish that it was possible to input an image in place of a definition. This would make the program more user friendly for a young reader.

To learn more about SpellQuizzer, or to download a free trial, you can visit their website. I suggest checking out the video demonstrations and the information on SpellQuizzer and homeschooling.

If all this information wasn't enough to convince you that this program is absolutely worth it, the creators of SpellQuizzer are giving away 1 complimentary license for this program to a Work & Play, Day by Day reader. Between now and January 15th, leave a comment on this post, link from your blog back to this contest, or send a tweet (make sure I get it @heartandarms). Be sure to leave an additional comment for each entry (with links and twitter names when appropriate) so that you get the right credit!

In order to complete this review, I was provided with a full license to use the product. All opinions are my own.

Happy New Year!

I had big plans to unveil a new blog design for 2010, but I have been thoroughly humbled by my technological mishaps! In fact, chances are you may have caught some of my failed attempts if you tried to visit in the last couple of days. There have been some doozies, I will admit!

I decided to go for small steps instead of one big reveal. I have a new navigation bar to help you find old posts more easily. You will notice that not all of the links are live yet, and some of the pages they direct you to are less than helpful. I'm working on that. Eventually each link above will lead you to an index page for posts relating to the specific topic.

We are people who will go to sleep somewhere in the ten o'clock range tonight and will wake at our normal time tomorrow with only a passing comment on the new year. In fact, two of my children are already sleeping! If this is your family as well, enjoy your nice and normal evening. If this is not you, then I wish you safe and enjoyable celebrations!

Learning By Observing

Kylee demonstrates why adults should always use proper technique for opening packages.