Monday, September 16, 2013

Catholic Homeschooling

I had always said that being a teacher is not for me. Being organized does not usually come naturally to me and to be a teacher you have to be very organized. But when I had my children and started to think about their schooling and homeschooling was an option that I thought of. Of course I thought I could never actually be the one to do the schooling. Perhaps my husband could or something. Eventually I came around to the possibility of me teaching my kids. I once spoke to someone who said "I can at least do as good of a job as most of the grade school teachers out there". Well that made me think about it. I may not be a formally trained teacher, but I care very much for my children (more than any teacher would) and I care very much for their education. I can be taught simple things and I should be able to teach my children those as well. I guess I realized that I could teach them when I started realizing that I AM teaching them all the time! Playing and just informing them about simple things. I realized that maybe I can give it a try.

I work full time though, and for now I am not in the position to stop this. I might try to go part time in the future, hopefully. Is it even possible to homeschool and work full time? A quick internet search about this led me to think that it was not really possible because most people make a face when I ask if I can do this and say "well...it would be really tough...". Pretty much every one I know that home schools has a mother that stays home. This, I'm sure, is ideal. I hear that preschool (which is not necessary) and kindergarten and maybe even 1st grade are pretty low key. They do not take hours a day to teach the children.

So here I am which my preschool aged daughter and I am going to try my hand at preschool while working full time and see how it goes. I have completed one successful week of this. I decided to use Mater Amabilis http://materamabilis.org/ma/ as my guide because if someone else tells me how to organize myself, I think I have a chance at organization. I basically tailored their ideas to my amount of time and schedule. I also am using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I am surprised that this book, though it may be intended for children older than her, seems to be working out well! She is moving through it slower than expected (due to attention span and my limited time constraints) but she is moving along! I also do simple counting activities with her for math and we read books that are suggested in the book Catholic Mosaic (recommended on Mater Amabilis' web site) which has books that have themes that relate to parts of the Catholic calendar. I just make our bed time story time a part of her schooling. This seems to be working!

I pray that I will be successful with this simple exercise. We have an Au Pair currently watching her during the day and I will attempt to have her do activities during the day that reinforce the learning we did together. I'll keep you posted on how it all goes! God is good! =D

Friday, September 6, 2013

Other hair styles: Braids

I loved this style a lot. Unfortunately the twists in the back don't last all that long. I might try the same front with a different style in the back and see how it holds up.





This is a style that I am very happy with how long it lasts me. Holds up pretty well.



This was a last minute flat twists in the front before church.


Pretty pig tails

Yes, it took me forever. Seems to be about 2 hours for me.


Thursday, September 5, 2013

White board recycling

I wasn't sure if it was possible, but I am now a believer that you really can salvage a white board!
This is how a white board started out which someone was going to throw away, so I had high hopes of salvaging it and scoring a nice white board for free. By the way, all the markings you see here (including the dark ones) were not able to erase at all!

After scouring the internet I came across some solutions that involved things I already had. First was toothpaste. I figured any flavor should be ok. I used some yucky cinnamon toothpaste that was really old and had been sitting around for emergencies when I ran out. I used a postpartum undie from the hospital that I never used...What?? It was clean!

Started gently scrubbing and praying

When I saw this, my eyes widened with wild excitement....IT'S GONNA WORK!!!

It didn't take long, and this was what I got. I realized, though, that there was old electric tape that I couldn't remove (Used to make a neat graph originally)

Again, the solution I found that involved something I already had was using cooking oil (I guess any kind, so I used canola)

I just poured a little on the tape...

And used the same cloth to scrub....aaaand it came off a little....not much...

At that point I was getting impatient, because I had gotten too far to be held back by some sticky tape! Yes, so I carefully pulled out the scrub sponge, understanding that I was taking a risk of scratching the surface and causing permanent damage.

BUT IT WORKED! Look how beautiful it is! A lovely feels-like-new white board. I was so excited that I looked on Craigslist to see if there were any bigger ones around that someone was giving away (thinking that it was ruined). Yep, now I feel like the white board restorer! It really was pretty easy!

I decided to try another easy solution I saw on the internet. I had red dry erase markings that would not erase. I heard you can just write over the original and THEN it will easily erase.

It worked!!! I would have done back flips if I physically could. (Have you ever wanted to do that even though you can't?)