#YearOfDisneyMovies

I decided one of the things I wanted to do in 2017 was watch more Disney movies, and maybe also get my son interested in them. I have my favorites, but there are some classics that I've never even seen in their entirety! I also haven't seen many of them since I've had a child of my own, so I'd like to review them and gauge them for appropriateness before exposing my son to the stories.

I have a list I made of the movies I will watch, in order of original release. Not EVERY Disney movie made the list, because there are only 52 weeks in the year and many more Disney movies than that, so you'll find I may skip some.

In the first week, I watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). I had never seen the whole movie, but I was very familiar with the story because growing up, we did the Disney version of the play every year for Halloween in elementary school, and I was always the narrator.

The movie felt simultaneously really slow and very short. I feel like it dragged on some, but there wasn't very much to the story. I also didn't much appreciate the goriness of the queen asking for a heart as proof of murder (thankfully, the heart is only mentioned and not shown) nor did I like the whole "murder" concept in general. This is one my son can do without seeing for a long while.

The second movie on my list was Pinocchio (1940). Again, I have never seen this movie in its entirety. I was just never interested, and to be honest, it took quite a while to motivate myself to watch this now. My only experience with Pinocchio is from old Sing Along Songs compilations.

So, lots of threats of violence against Pinocchio = strike one. The idea of threatening noncompliance to societal norms with child slavery = strike two. I do appreciate the visual about lying and the emphasis on honesty and goodness, but strike 3 comes just then with the creepy old dude being extra evil about swiping little boys to take to Pleasure Island. The creep factor is just way too much. I don't even need to tell you how I feel about the underage smoking...I don't think my son needs to see this one, period.

Maybe I'm extra hard on the older stuff unjustly, seeing as it's from a different time...but I'm glad I'm reviewing these before my son gets a chance to internalize these sorts of messages. I do appreciate how game-changing these films were for the time and industry, and I'm glad I got to see them from that perspective. This week, I'm watching Fantasia, another movie I have no experience with. Let's see how it goes!

Our January Homeschool Goals...

Bu has recently expressed interest in writing letters as opposed to shapes and lines. He is bored with the "pre-writing" stuff and wants to go straight to writing!

There's a specific order in which letters should be taught for writing, from easiest to manage to most difficult. The list we are following is from Handwriting Without Tears. We are focusing on capital letters first and intend to take all of 2017 to go through each letter. We don't expect mastery or even independent writing by the end of the year, but we are instead aiming for introduction of how to write each letter and plenty of opportunity to practice so that he is comfortable with the concept by the end of the year. As with everything else, we do not treat learning as a race and we are not in an rush for any one skill or concept to be solidified by any given time. We find our son learns very quickly and effectively when he decides he is ready to.

We are also including some crafts and hands on activities this month, with a Winter theme in mind. I might revamp the way I planned things out next month, but I feel we got more done and were more motivated to work when we were doing unit studies as opposed to following a curriculum laid out for us in a book.

We also recently got a DVD player in the car, which means that Bu cannot easily scan through or change chapters and programs at will. I am taking advantage of this by introducing different educational DVDs and programs on the way to our therapy appointments, so he can become familiar with different characters, songs, etc that we can watch later at home and learn from. This month, we are focusing on a couple of Signing Time DVDs. He is very familiar with the people on the show but has his few favorite DVDs, so I'd like for him to branch out to others so he can learn more signs. I am also introducing a Kindergarten life skills DVD and nursery rhymes from Rock N Learn, which is a series I intend to use for many subjects. Familiarity and acceptance of the characters, style of animation, etc is a must.

We are reading a Preschool Prep sight words book every single day, just to get in the habit of reading for fun. Bu was recently assessed by his ABA therapist as being at or above age level for reading, in spite of being nonverbal. That is compared to typical children, not just children with special needs! His word and letter recognition is fantastic, and he picks up new words and spellings every single day. At a typical school, they might not have tested his reading ability for years, considering he can't verbally read. Yay for homeschooling and teaching/assessing in a way that makes sense for my individual child and his needs!

Here's to a great 2017 full of learning and growing!

Pre-K-5!

August 1 was our official start date for Pre-K-5! I'm so excited for this year. We have a lot of new stuff in place, and Bu is picking things up so quickly these days...we're in for a lot of learning!

Because I'm starting a "new year", we're easing into it again. Rather than doing activities in "units" or themes this year, I've set up a system to broaden Bu's experiences. Every day, we do a couple of pages in a workbook (to get him used to the idea of workbooks, in case we decide to go that route in the future for curriculum), something technology based (like online curriculum or watching an educational video) and something hands on. This way, he's experiencing learning from many approaches.  I always plan to keep the workbook to 2-3 pages a day this year because it's not his favorite, but I'll likely do less videos and more hands on activities as the "year" builds up.

The work online is typically going to be either ABCMouse or Time4Learning. I'm more interested in him becoming familiar with using the computer, learning to use a mouse, etc than I am about the actual curriculum. A lot of this year is about deciding that he's old enough and at a high enough level of understanding to try new things, so we can determine how he learns best and, more importantly, how he WANTS to learn. 

I've set up a visual schedule on the table we work at, so he always knows what we will be doing and how much more there is to do. We're also working with "first, then" to help motivate him to do the work. His favorite thing is his iPad (filled to the brim with only educational videos and apps), so we do "first work, then iPad" several times a session to break up the work and give him plenty of motivation to get it all done.

I'm looking forward to sharing our activities again this year, and to keep you all updated on Bu's learning and progress. I hope everyone has a great school year! Let me know what you're all up to!

Whole 30 - Week 1 down!

I'm 7 days into my first round ever of Whole 30. I wanted to start this to jumpstart a healthier version of the healthy eating I already do. I like to eat mostly paleo, but at the very least gluten and dairy free. My body does not react well to gluten or dairy, so it's typically not very tempting to "cheat" because it's not worth it to feel icky for days just to have a bite of something "bad" (the exception usually being some sort of dessert splurge at Disney World or something LOL)

Even when I'm eating paleo, it's not very strict in that I ALWAYS have sugar in my morning almond-milk-latte. I also make concessions about eating on the road when I have to, like the occasional Starbucks "coconut milk" (additive laden) coffee or a bunless Whopper from Burger King. I'm fine with eating like that when options are limited, but I found myself making choices like that more often when I had perfectly good, nutritious food at home. I also know I have a bad relationship with sugar and carbs and general, and Whole 30 is a great way to reset your brain and your troubled relationships with certain food groups.

The first couple of days, I was HUNGRY. Even when I'd just finished eating, I wanted to keep snacking. I remember feeling that way the first week or so when I'd FIRST started eating clean/paleo, so I knew it was normal, but it was HARDCORE nonetheless. I was ravenous. My tummy wasn't very happy with me, either.

I'm currently in the midst of a (non related) chest cold, so I'm not sure how much of what I'm feeling in terms of tiredness and brain fog is due to the change in eating habits and how much is due to the illness. I feel like the food choices are pretty easy at this point, though. I'm not having cravings, I'm not particularly hungry...I'm having to remind myself to eat, actually. I'm super thirsty, but it's also summer in South Florida, so I think that's a given.

I had made myself a 2 week meal plan that I could revolve through twice, in order to stave off boredom and keep myself on track (because a failure to plan is a plan to fail, right?)...So far though, it's day 7 and I'm only on day 4 of the meal plan. I'm finding myself with so many leftovers that I'm having to freeze foods, even though I'm repeating my dinners for both breakfast and lunch sometimes. Maybe later in the month, I'll post some meal ideas or my menu plan...

I was nervous to start a Whole 30, but it's much easier than I expected it to be! 7 days down, 23 to go!

We're back!

Hi, all! It's been a minute since I've updated the blog. We have continued schooling but blogging took a back seat lately, since the household has been so busy!

We actually completed our Pre-K-4 year officially earlier this month. I will likely continue using tasks and activities from our themed Pinterest boards, so you will see more links pop up as the next school year starts up.

We are spending the summer in "maintenance mode," practicing learned skills so that we don't regress over the short (month long, approximately) break, and also assessing what skills are strengths and which skills need a little more work, so I know what to focus on in the coming year.

We're changing our format slightly next year...we will still be doing lots of hands on activities, but I want to try to shift a bit more towards workbooks since Bu is at an age where writing practice is appropriate. Ideally, each work day will consist of some workbook task (no more than a couple pages a day of simple, skill-appropriate work), a hands on activity, and some sort of "technologically" geared activity, whether that's an educational video or time on ABCMouse/Time4Learning.

I started an instagram for this blog so I can post more frequently in an easier format...feel free to follow along!

I've also got quite a summer reading list for myself, in preparation for next year's schooling. I'm hoping to share book reviews and my thoughts on the books I've read and let you know if I have found them helpful in our journey. This is what I'm reading this week. It's a short read, as it's mostly examples of task boxes...I think I'm going to be implementing a lot of these ideas for our hands-on activities :)

I will also be sharing general Disney World, planner, convention, etc sort of stuff on that instagram account...basically, everything I already share here!

Hope to see you there, and hopefully things calm down around here soon (summer schedules and all) and I can go back to updating the blog regularly!

Our Homeschool, Week 32: "Stars & Space"

This week, our theme was Stars & Space.Unfortunately, I don't have much to show you guys. Between preparing to go to Disney World and just generally dealing with a lot of bureaucratic stuff with Bu's insurance and prescriptions, homeschooling sort of fell by the wayside.

We did all our usual puzzles, color, shape and letter identifying, and educational apps. We just didn't do much in the way of space-specific activities.  I'll save this theme to pick up on at a later date, so no harm, no foul. Thus is the magic of homeschooling!

Have a great week, everyone! We'll be back soon to tell you about our Memorial Day activities!

UPCOMING THEMES:

Memorial Day

Farm

Father's Day

Summer

Monsters

Our Homeschool, Week 31: "Transportation"

This week, our theme was Transportation. We had fun learning about all sorts of things that go: boats, cars, trains and planes!

Above is a collection of books, puzzles and other materials we used this week. There's a magnetic board for a collage, a puzzle maze, erasers to use in a sensory bin, books and a coloring activity. Below, you can see how we used some of these items. 

I bought 3 little plastic cars at the dollar store and used a piece of a box (yay, recycling!) to create this craft activity. I just put blobs of paint on one end of the cardboard and place a car in each spot. Then I encouraged Bu to roll the cars back and forth to see the tracks left behind. Then we moved the cars around the box and continued to roll back and forth to make this fun painting!

Here is Bu playing with the magnetic board pictured above. I just let him place the magnets wherever he chose, but a more mature activity could be to sort which vehicles belong on the road, in the water and in the sky.

Lastly, we sorted vehicle counters by color, completed vehicle puzzles, and played a matching game. Bu then took it upon himself to grab pegs off his pegboard to sort by color on top of his vehicle flashcards. Yay for self directed learning!

UPCOMING THEMES:

Stars & Space

Memorial Day

Farm

Father's Day

Summer

Monsters