Work Life Balance

I realized today that many of my fellow homeschool moms don’t realize that I actually work too!  I thought for a minute (duh!) that I since I am very passionate about what I do, I should share a little about what I’ve been doing for the past 4 years (whoa! It’s been that long?).

In 2007, I saw an opportunity to serve as an ambassador for a program called the Phoenix Teaching Fellows.  This program recruits, selects, and trains professionals and recent college grads to become teachers in high-need schools. Since then I’ve served in various capacities but my most favorite part of the job is recruitment. Last year, the Phoenix Teaching Fellows changed its name to the Arizona Teaching Fellows to reflect its expansion to other parts of Arizona. Yay!

I mentioned that my biggest dream is to see that my boys will eventually hold a career in something that they are passionate about and love. While I only work seasonally for the AZTF, I truly am grateful for the opportunity. Why? Hundreds of students who because of AZTF will have committed, high-quality teachers who will give them them the best education they deserve. There is no doubt that there is a true disparity in high needs schools and wealthy schools. That’s why AZTF exists.  Because students in high needs schools truly need these dedicated, high achieving college grads and career professionals to pour into their lives. To become that constant that they truly crave and need. Every year I get to personally meet the new Fellows and I beam with such excitement. They have no idea that the commitment they made is going to impact so many children.

When my sweetie taught he carried around this Starfish Story in his wallet.  I love knowing that the work we do will bring just one more teacher that will impact one more student. WOW! Talk about making a difference!

Going back to my dream of our boys doing the kind of work they are passionate about is why I wanted to talk about the work I do.  It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like play. I love what I do. I look forward to the time I set aside to do it. I schedule it in right after our homeschool day and the time FLIES. Isn’t that a blessing?!

So when someone talks about work life balance I think about the fact that when you love what you do, your life is balanced. I’m not saying that there aren’t difficult days or some days in which it’s really hard, I’m just saying that' it’s definitely nice to have that passion and drive.  Have that in whatever you do.  If you are a homeschooling mom, do it with passion and drive. LOVE IT. Look forward to it. If you are a stay-at-home mom, have passion in it. Enjoy homemaking. Read articles and blogs about homemaking and get good at it too. You know?  Homemaking, homeschooling, being CEO of the home is totally work and while that doesn’t really add zeroes to our paycheck, it is an investment into our children.  And that my friend, is work and life balance .

Love letters = Journaling

I read about this awhile ago on a homeschooling blog and thought I would give this a try.  I am so excited because since I began this journal this year, we have already written over a dozen letters to each other.  One of the great things about this vs. a writing journal is because it is personal and you get a sort of immediate feedback.  The boys look forward to my letters every morning and love to write to me what they are thinking. Ira loves to draw pictures of superheroes for me and Nani likes to talk about how he’s looking forward to his upcoming birthday party.  I am so thrilled on their writing progress and it keeps me accountable to write them back each day.  I am sooo loving this!

This week in review

Not sure if you would call this week the most productive but I didn’t have high expectations anyway being that it would have been a 2-day school week.  We had MLK day off (hard to do “school” when daddy’s home) and had a field trip planned for Thursday and with no school on Friday’s it was definitely going to be an off week.  I am grateful for the fact that nowadays, the kind of off weeks don’t stress me out so much.  It is all about a balance anyway and on most days we hit school so hard we start as early as 9am and work non-stop (eat lunch at our desks) until about 3pm.  The boys and I wrote goals at the beginning of the year and I tailored our learning to make sure to meet those goals. More on that later

Our field trip on Thursday to see this guy at National Geographic Live was pretty awesome.  Nani is pretty adamant about being a mechanical engineer and was soaking everything the guy was talking about.  He talked about how he grew up playing with Legos, and loved to learn math and science.  This love landed him the opportunity to be part of the team that constructed the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit.  He is currently working on Curiosity in which this rover will be launching later this year to Mars.  I sat there visualizing Nani as the person speaking in front of hundreds of children about “dreaming big.”  To be honest, all I could ever dream of for our children is that they would hold a career that they LOVE and are truly passionate about.  But NEVER, EVER, forgetting about giving back.  This life is more than just thinking about ourselves and worrying about us.  There are children who go every night hungry.  There are children who barely have any security or love in their home. These are the children we need to advocate for and pour into and speak up for.  I forever want our boys to see that their parents lives were dedicated to that. We model that so I pray they would do the same.

At the end of the presentation our boys got the unique opportunity to take a picture with the presenter.  Pretty cool huh?

Guitar, Karate, and Baseball…. Oh my!

Seriously, what’s the deal anyway? Every spring I get a sort of an extra-curricular activities fever.  We don’t normally enroll in sports in the summer or winter but every spring we get involved in some a lot of things.

• We just had guitar class today and the boys rocked!  I am so proud of them!  They learned their G, D, and E minor chords.  Nani learned how to play “Open the Eyes of My Heart” while Ira requested to learn, “I Won’t Back Down.”  Go figure! I can imagine him singing, “No I won’t back down… You can stand me up at the gates of h#@l but I won’t back down…” LOL
• Ira will start his karate class this week.
• Nani will start up baseball next month.

We are still in Cub Scouts and have quite a few field trips on our calendar so I know the days of just lounging around in our PJs doing school all day will be long gone.  I really enjoy the busyness of the hectic schedule (until about midway through when I wonder what I had gotten myself into).  Then summer comes around and while we won’t be out and about often, we’ll be schooling through the summer .

Spanish?

 

A fellow homeschooler asked me today whether our boys spoke Spanish.  I struggled today to think of the reasons why my boys don’t know Spanish.  It’s not like we don’t speak it. In fact, we only speak it when we don’t want the boys to understand our top secret adult talk. 

I still remember the day we stopped spelling things to each other. You know, when you have to say something to each other and decide that they are too young to sound it out if you spell it? It began when the first Transformers movie came out and I told my sweetie that I would get him a similar air freshener that Bumblebee had in the movie.  The one that is spelled B-E-E-O-T-C-H  (it’s spelled that way in the movie).  We giggled and then we heard Nani sound out the word behind us.  ACK! We were mortified. 

So we decided that we needed a new code language and began using the fact that we are both fluent Spanish as an easy way out.  Pros, the boys don’t understand and won’t be able to detect what we are talking about (i.e. details to a certain surprise birthday party coming up). Cons, well there is a huge BIG one.  They can’t communicate to their Abuelita (grandma)!  Even more, we all know how beneficial it would be to be bilingual.  I terribly want them to have that advantage of course. I just can’t figure out how to do it!

The best language curriculum I’ve ever heard about is Rosetta Stone… but have you seen the price tag on that?  How can I vouch for paying $600 for a Spanish language curriculum, WHEN WE SPEAK SPANISH?!!!! I’ve been trying to remember to do little language lessons here and there but since it is not structured its not consistent.  It’s hard to have either Grandma teach them because they don’t see them often enough. Time to come up with some ideas! To be continued…

Our Workbox system

My sweetie asked my last night how this system has been working for me since we implemented it last year.  I can’t say enough how much it has saved my life! 

Long ago (really, it was just a few months ago), I remember the boys asking me,

• “How many more assignments?”
• “Do we really have to do this?”
• “How much longer is school?”
• “Ahhh mom, do we have to do this one too?”

When I learned about this workbox system, my mind started racing.  This might be the answer to all my problems (It doesn’t take the crying out of homeschooling though LOL)!  With this system, I insert their work each morning in their folders (ideally you would do this at night but there is so much going on, there is no way I would be able to do that).  I know what to put in them each day because I plan out the school year and use this software to do that.  I bought the software back in 2007 when I officially started homeschooling Nani and it works great!  The boys then come to their desks each morning and know what is expected of them.  They know that they are not complete with our homeschool day until we complete all the folders.  I set up the system so that I can provide one-on-one help with Ira while Nani completes his other assignments that he can do on his own (Bible study, vocabulary work, handwriting, reading, etc.).  Then when Ira is finished, I allow him to play educational online games with his netbook while I conduct one-on-one lessons with Nani (math, spelling, Sonlight, etc.).

Each day they may complete all their work at different times.  Sometimes as early as 1 p.m. and other days as late as 3:30 p.m.  Either way, they know that they school’s not over until they have completed all their assignments so there is no ambiguity or they don’t think that I am making up the assignments as we go along. 

Isn’t it cool?

A homeschool day without a tear?

As I reflect on this first week back at “school,” there is a recurring theme. We seem to have so many tears!  Nani cried on Monday, Ira cried on Tuesday and I told them at this rate, Mom will definitely cry on Wednesday (it made them giggle at the thought of it).  Also to set the record straight, I didn’t shed a tear today though Ira did a little.
I knew that after having a month and a half off it would be an uphill battle.  We work on a calendar schedule and though I love having part of November and December off, I sometimes wonder if it is really worth it?  I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate with all the joys of our traditions on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.  And, since our summers are so hot that we don’t dare venture outside unless we absolutely HAVE to, it makes sense to continue our schooling.
Either way, homeschooling is definitely not easy.
  Don’t let anyone tell you different .

Ahhh the first day back at homeschooling!

Today was officially our first day back on.  It was a sort of uphill battle but we did it!  Ira was especially enthusiastic and elated to get back to homeschooling.  Nani was too but it seems that when it came to writing that was the hard part.  I decided enough was enough and began researching about this.  I don’t think Nani really doesn’t want to write, I think something else can be wrong.  Whatever the case may be, I decided to seek professional help.  I researched a few articles (ok, maybe more than 3 hours worth) and realized that the assistance of an occupational therapist may be the solution.  Hours later, I am on the phone with one who tells me she can help by assessing Nani and coming up with tutoring sessions which will include training so that I can continue the work with him.
I’ll be talking with my sweetie about this tonight for sure!
We worked from 9 am until 3 pm today non-stop!  It was pretty intense but the boys had a good attitude about it and we relaxed by snuggling on the couch and watched a classic movie…The Never Ending Story.

This week's progress

Pretty excited this week about our lessons with G
This week, G working on a unit study on China

• Short research on the the country
• reading Chapter Book "Little Pear"
• reading Chapter book "Magic TreeHouse: Day of the Dragon King
• making Chinese lanterns
• copying Chinese characters

I am so excited! This Unit Study is really fun for both of us...

First week of Homeschool!

So far so good! I can say that it's going...well we are not doing too bad.

I ordered our curriculum from Sonlight and it was sooo worth the investment. Ira is doing the Preschool 4,5 level and Geovanni is doing the Core 1+2 History with the Mesa Distance Learning program. I've been supplementing some additional things here and there as I see needed, but it is totally rocking! Exhausting... but rocking. We have a memory verse each week, read a Bible story daily and are totally intaking a whole lot of stuff.

I feel so blessed to be homeschooling...I love it and can't wait until another successful year!

Love,

Earth Day!

It's Earth Day today and I thought it would be great to conduct a homeschool study on being "green." So lil' Geovanni and I sat down and researched the 3 R's... Recycle, Resuse, and Reduce. I learned so much from our local recycling website. I was apalled on the amount of items that I was throwing away instead of recycling! Even worse, I felt embarrassed of our lack of consideration of taking care of our Earth! So lil' Geovanni and I made a commitment to become more concious on what we can recylcle. I am thinking more about what can be reused (i.e those containers for sour cream, cottage cheese, etc. make great tupperware items!). To help reduce, I think that thinking through our purchases and making sure to donate clothing not only helps being more frugal, but we are more conciously aware about our good deeds!

We started a mini collection of reusable grocery bags. If only I can remember to throw them in the car so that I don't do the "I forgot" to bring them to the grocery store dance when I get there.... ugh.

The drycleaners near me have these great triangle boxes to store those wire hangers. I am pretty excited because the look so cool and it's a neat way to store them. After I am all done collecting them, I can put bring them back to the cleaner's. Unfortunately, they don't offer a discount for recycling the hangers... at least I can pat myself on the back though for one more "green" effort!

Happy Earth Day!

Preschool Project

Today Ira and I worked on our ABC book. We are taking one letter of the alphabet and cutting out pictures from magazines that correspond to that letter. I know he can identify certain letters but I am hoping I can integrate some of the letter sounds too.

After about 20 minutes working on the book, he started yawning which is a total clue that it is time to stop! So funny the attention span of a 3 year old!

Here is a pic of the book we started so far...

Preschool Project Shapes

I decided I would teach Ira some shapes today. I cut out different shapes: triangles, circles and squares and we practiced identifying them. Then I drew the shapes on a large chart paper and had him race against the clock to match the shapes and sort them. He did so well with the game!

The hard part was getting him to listen and pay attention of course. I decided to take it one step further and try to get him to make patterns with the shapes. For example, I would put circle, square, circle, square, circle.... and ask him to fill in the last item. He didn't get it at first but then I sang the rythm to him and he liked it! So singing to him helps with learning... what a concept!

If you have more than one child with whom you are homeschooling... always remember that there are so many different learning styles. I am quickly learning that Ira does not like just sitting and listening to stories. He just doesn't have the patience. However, if I sing the stories to him (and sadly, I can't carry a tune, but he LOVES it!), or somehow incorporate some kind of rythm as I did above with the shapes... he totally "gets" it.

Homeschooling a preschooler is loads of fun and I am so thankful to be doing this again... part 2! With lil' Geovanni going into third grade this fall, the concepts are getting more challenging. Having Ira allows me to make up the things I didn't get to do with lil' Geovanni since he was my first homeschooler.

For more fun preschool activites I found this fantastic blog... Check it out!

Ira Painting

I had Ira paint today. It made me cringe to get it all set up but it wasn't bad at all! He was content while Nani did his homework and I am so amazed at his artistic abilities! Go mama! Another successful homeschool day!

Field Trip to AZ Science Center!

This is how our boys' looked when we went on a field trip to the AZ Science Center! I love the mohawk haircut on Baby Ira. We loved it soo much that we included it in the Spiderman Video he has!

Scared of the Rain

The first part where he is scratching his head is when he was afraid of the raindrops on his head. This was a fun day playing in the rain!

Just Reading....

Here is la boricua reading his letter books... I know, i know, he needs a hair cut. Things have just been a little crazy lately!

My back hurts...

For the past 3 days, i have been suffering with the worst backache ever! However, school must go on and we did lots of stuff this past week! Here are some pictures of my littlest one doing his work!

Bad day :(

Let's see this is how today went. I began this morning waking up softly in hopes Ira would not wake up. As soon as i moved, he was crying and whining. This has been the case every morning for as long as i can remember. Some days... when I am really lucky, he sleeps until after daddy leaves. But that hasn't happened in ages. thus every morning i have been frustrated, tired, and grumpy. i had to iron daddy's clothes, find boxers, and a white shirt. inside i am so mad i didn't get laundry put away entirely (see my last post).

made coffee and couldn't drink it. ira was clinging on to me and wouldnt let go so there was no chance of straightening up. baby geo woke up about 9am... then the fighting began... over ninja turtles, the waffle and drinks. "mom, ira took my drink, mom, ira dropped my waffle..." my plans to go to the library changed when i thought we wouldd have so much more fun reading books at home here. so i cleaned up the classroom (it doesn't look like that anymore) and began reading "fish" book as ira calls it. In the middle of reading it, ira practically ripped the book and wanted a new book... wait, no, he wants me to finish it... nope he wants a new one... ok... so he wouldn't decide. then he found baby geo's secret stash of toys. i begged baby geo to hide it somewhere else so we can distract ira as he is screaming... sigh.

i decided to show ira some computer games and logged into teletubbies, starfall, etc. Baby geo got upset (i still am not sure why) and he stormed away and threw a tantrum. i was so angry i couldn't control it anymore. i put him in the garage. he was crying. i hated myself for not being able to be more patient with him. he apologized and so did i. I came back to the classroom to find that ira pushed had the comptuer on some other screen. I tried to set geovanni up on the computer to find out that there is no sound. oh dear. what happened? i spent the next 90 minutes installing drivers and the operating system back in the computer. Ira had really messed it up.

At the end of it though, i whispered, "thank u Jesus!" never forgetting to praise Him even in the touhgest times and baby geo said, see mama? God heard me! baby geo proceeded to say that he had asked God to fix the computer cuz mama is frustrated and mad. i gave him a BIG hug and thanked him for praying for me... what an angel!

i got geovanni started on online school work and began trying to put ira to sleep. it took another 45 minutes to get him to calm down enough to fall asleep.... alas, it's 1:30 and now its time to start baby geo's school....

he wasn't that into it today. it was pulling teeth to get him to do any of it. let's just say school wasn't all that productive except the fact that he completed all the assignments...

then at 3:30 ira woke up. of course it was the same thing... he was mad and moody again and it lasted another hour before he finally was "up and at 'em". i spent the next hour crying to my papi chulo about how frustrating the day was. there is nothing i despise more than feeling so horrible and not understanding truly why. but daddy helped me figure out that it was because i need to understand that there is a such thing as a bad day. i guess i have a hard time with that because i feel like i cant have bad days. the boys (including daddy) depend on me. I also think its because there is almost no time to reflect or even have a moment to my self. as any mom would know, one can't even go to the bathroom without being interuppted...

nights are not an option because we plop down all exhausted and the boys won't even sleep until we fall asleep. also, mornings... well you know how that goes already. So when can we even have some time to just breathe? i know it is a phase and right now i am so thankful my papi chulo is supportive and undertandning. i really feel truly blessed that even though i think i am insane myself, daddy won't say that to me :)

Boys will be Boys

Ira is driving me crazy all morning today! Baby geo fell asleep on the couch when he came downstairs and Ira kept jumping on him trying to wake him up. Of course that made baby geo sooo moody and now Ira is moody because his brother won't play with him...

I have to admit though... it is kinda cute :)

I miss my Papi Chulo a lot today. I felt happy when he called. .. To hear his voice makes me melt. I can't believe after all these years he still has the power to give me butterflies and makes my heart skip a beat. It reminds me of when I was floating on air when he took me home that day from school. He is soooo gorgeous and boy did I SCORE on the CUTEST guy on EARTH!

I have been busy doing loads of laundry. Let's just pray I can get them put away today. There is nothing more annoying for me than to get them in the washer, dryer and then have loads of CLEAN Laundry all over the place! I can't wait to finally to get into a routine. It's just hard when there is SOOO much to do!

I think I will start school with Ira in about 20 more minutes. Today we will do a review on shapes. He's gonna make me read him 10 books again. He LOVES books! Yet another genious in our household...

With baby Geo I gotta do quite a few things...

1. Horizons Math workbook 1 page
2. Art Project - Ten-Frame Creature. Using an egg carton with two sections cut off, along with the top, create a creature. Use markers to decorate it, along with pipe cleaners for legs, and a styrofoam ball to make a head. Then using the 10 sections of the carton, let your student practice combinations that add up to 10. For example, put a lima bean in 3 sections, and a pinto bean in 7 sections, and then add together. Practice writing the math problems on paper; 3 + 7 = 10. Discuss what the symbols + and = mean.
3. Language Arts Basal Reader book and worksheet
4. Draw a picture of something he likes to do for fun and then write try to write a sentence about the pictures. Assist, if needed. Then cut the picture to create a puzzle
5. Review Bible Study and Memorize verse for Palm Valley breakout today
6. Review powerpoint presentation so that he can present to group on Friday.

Sounds like a busy day today...as Jimmy Neutron would say... GOTTA BLAST!