Miler Run Home School

It's been a lot longer than I would've liked since I've written in my blog. I started home schooling yesterday and it has taken up much more of my time than i anticipated. Planning is the only difficult part. I want this experience to be fun for them but challenging at the same time. I didn't realize how much Andi could read already. It made me even happier that I am home schooling because I realized how much I've been missing. Today she read two entire books by herself. I'm so proud of her! Cilas has adapted pretty well. I allow him to leave the room if it gets to be too much for, which has happened a few times. But he's 2 years younger than her and I don't want to push him too hard. Once I get more acclimated to my new schedule, I will post my curriculum, at least a week-by-week planner of what I'm doing. Hopefully it will help someone because when I was looking for a free curriculum online to use, I couldn't find any. I found free planner printables and such but no actual lesson plans. So hopefully, it will be of use to at least one person :)

Homeschool bound

I filed my letter of intent with board of education today. So, hopefully, in two weeks, Andi will officially become a home schooled child. I only plan to do it for a few years. Just until Cilas is old enough to go in first grade. I think they expect a lot out of kindergarteners now. I think if they are to learn their curriculum that they should be taught at home for a few years, first. The behavior issues they have with her, I don't agree with. Frankly, I think it's stupid they are expected to do some of these things. She told me one day that, yes, she did get warned three times, and she wouldn't follow directions, so her card was changed(they have a color-coded card system for dealing with behavior). I told her she needed to follow directions(which, of course, she does). After telling her about why it's important to listen, I asked her what the directions were that she didn't follow. She told me that, these were her words "mom, i didn't listen three times, i just wouldn't put my hands in my lap". :O I'm sorry but I think it's stupid that she's expected to sit with her hands in her lap. She's five. She's also in charge of bringing home important papers. I haven't received several important things because, like most 5 year olds, she has forgotten to bring them home. When I approached these concerns with the school they told me that these rules are to teach them about being responsible and independent.I'm sorry but I really don't want my 5 year to be independent. Responsible, yes, to some degree, but c'mon, she's five!! I think this is why our 15 and 16 year olds are going out and having sex, getting pregnant. We push them from such a young age to grow up. Let them be kids when they are kids. So when they are adults, they are ready. I'm excited about home schooling. I think it will be a great experience for all of us!

Yea! It's fall

 

Even my five year old is excited about the season change this year. The temperature, the smell in the air, everything feels of fall right now. I love it! Andi woke up on yesterday and declared "it is 22 today, THAT MEANS IT'S FALL". I'm so happy she is excited! I wish she didn't have school so we could spend more of the day together doing fun stuff. Cilas isn't as excited about it, but I'm taking him to the lake tomorrow and hopefully that can get him into it. We are going to collect leaves, acorns, and pine cones. They have an after school play date with our new neighbors so we won't do our craft until Tuesday after school. But we are going to make stained glass windows with the leaves, acorn people with the acorns, and I'm going to use the pine cones to make a wreath. I finished my first spell book and potion bottle. They came out great and I'm excited to make them additions to my scarce selection of Halloween decorations. This is how they came out:

I was really proud of them!! I really liked the bottle of "muumy dust". I just started using photoshop. I used it to make the label and I think it turned out really awesome. I used tea to age everything. It worked pretty good, too. I think it did wonders to the book. I kinda rubbed it around extra in different places to give it depth. I got the idea from pinterest. They were from two different sites. Here are the links: Mummy Dust  
and Spell Book 
I plan on doing another spell book. It's halfway done. It 's the brown one beside the mummy dust bottle. I'm going to do this one kinda like the book on Hocus Pocus. I'll post pictures and links when I'm finished with it. 
 

four more days until the autumn equinox!!

Okay, yes, I am a big dork. I absolutely countdown the days until I'm actually allowed to put up my decorations. I am that person that gets made fun of because I am literally putting up my tree on Thanksgiving- in the evening, of course. I started making a spell book today as an addition to my Halloween decorations. I'm using Photoshop to make the pages and I am so proud of myself. I've never really used Photoshop before and I am pretty happy with what I've done. I'll post pictures when I'm completely finished, along with the links that inspired the idea. Again, I'd like to mention how much i love Pinterest. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, it! I plan to be doing LOTS of crafts this year. Hopefully, I can get the kids into it more. Yesterday, I tried to do this leaf craft with Ci and even though I enjoyed it way more than making batman and robin save the smurfs, he didn't seem to feel the same way. It was a cool idea though; we collected leaves first. He enjoyed that part quite a bit. Then we hammered the leaves onto textured paper. You put a paper towel over the leaves, first. The color transfers to the paper giving you a really pretty leaf on the paper. I didn't know you could hammer out the color of leaves! I thought it was very cool. But Ci was pretty eager to get back to our block tower and robin. Andi's in school now, and even though it's nice to have time with Ci I almost feel guilty doing fun things without her :/ Makes the idea of homeschooling so much more appealing. BUT, more on that some other time..... tomorrow I will be finishing my string ball decorations, start decoupaging my spell book, and hopefully squeeze in a workout. It's been a good month since I've worked out and I really need to get to it. I'll try to post pictures of at least the string ball decorations. It'll probably be Friday before I can post pictures of my spell book, though. Maybe, even Saturday. There just aren't enough hours in the day.....

We are shining And we will never be afraid again

I am seriously addicted to Florence and the Machine. So far my favorite songs are Spectrum, Blinding, Dog Days are Over, What the Water Gave Me, and her cover of Addicted to Love. Her voice is a fresh change. Her music takes me to a different place. It's almost like meditating. It's very soothing but intriguing at the same time.
I made a new kind of cupcake yesterday. I traditionally only get excited about chocolate cupcakes, but i knew my  husband would like this one so i was a little excited. They were grape koolaid cupcakes with grape koolaid-buttercream frosting. They were quite a hit. I made 2 dozen and between 6 people they were gone in a matter of hours. They will definitely be a "keep" recipe. THIS is where I got the idea.
By the way, you can follow me on pinterest, here!
I'm also addicted to pinterest. I recently organized my crafting supplies with help from pinterest. My closet is now my craft haven. I plan to post pictures soon but I have to paint my closet and try to make it look prettier before it's photo ready!! I should probably get to that.....

public schools suck

I had a very frustrating morning today! Andi, my five year old, is having problems with her teacher at school. She comes home crying, saying her teacher is mean. She is punished for such minor things at school. For example, she got put in the corner for being "too messy" with finger painting(she had one little tiny dot of paint on her clothes, so i highly doubt she was that messy), she got sent to the principal's office for not sitting still, she got her weekly prize taken away for breaking a crayon. I understand that certain behaviors need corrected, but these things seem very insignificant. They are definitely not reasons to be sent to the office. I went in today to try to have her switched to different class. I spoke to 4 different people but they still won't move her. I agreed to a meeting with her two teachers and the principal. I told them if the situation didn't approve I'd be withdrawing her from school and homeschooling her. Which is exactly what i will be doing. I highly doubt these issues will be resolved. I absolutely do NOT like her teacher. I don't think that will be changing. But I'm going to try to go into this with an open mind. Hopefully, things do get better. Andi really enjoys being around other kids and homeschooling will really limit that. :( Blah... Is today over yet?

Branching Out

Normally, I resort to good ol' paper and pen when I'm trying to organize my thoughts. However my recent Feng shui attempts I have led me to reconsider! I have organizer after organizer, folder after folder(okay, i think you get it) of ideas, journal entries, etc. I think it's time to condense this stuff. Hence, my new blog! I'm really into pretty stuff so I hope I can figure out how to change my template on here, this one is just horrible. I'm so not used to google and I had to create a google account to join Blogger. I didn't realize it(google+) had a news feed or a place for blogging. I'm just starting to become internet savvy. This entry will be short, I really want to play with my templates!!