Showing posts with label tyler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tyler. Show all posts
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Please Pardon Our Dust
The twins' room has been undergoing a transformation today. There are currently at least four amusement park projects underway. Tyler can't seem to be able to get enough of his K'Nex sets. With me, it was Erector Sets, in the early seventies. At least, instead of watching TV, he's spending these cold winter days doing something 'constructive'.Friday, June 15, 2007
Champion!
Tyler's all-star team had their championship game tonight. They won! Here's Tyler with his trophy. Think he's happy? Too bad the major league Orioles can't do as good as this one.Tomorrow starts another round of softball tournament play in Salisbury. Tay and Ty's regular coach-pitch team will finish up their season back home. Connor's team is still in the end of season tournament, but they now have one loss. One more and they're out, and done for the season. Connor is pitching tomorrow. I know he'll do well, especially since I won't be there. He always does well, but seems to do exceptionally well when I miss his game. We're also waiting for results from his soccer tryouts for the travel league. He's played travel soccer for several years, but took the past year off, for various reasons, and wants to get back into it. He's an extremely good goalie and defender so I don't doubt he'll get the job. If (when) he does, he'll have to choose between baseball and soccer next Spring, since travel soccer is year-round and will conflict with baseball in a major way.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Our First Measurable Snow
It came very late this year (hurray for Global Warming!--if you believe in that sort of thing; I don't, at least not the man-made kind), and we only got about two inches of snow with a crust of ice on top. It was enough for Tyler to build his mini-snowman, of which he is very proud. He did it all by himself. I know this because he told me how much work it was; several times he told me this. I don't think he's done telling me this. Anyway, Bekah and Kearsyn are asleep. Tay and Ty are watching TV. I'm breaking all the rules today, regarding TV, mostly because I woke up grumpy. Or, maybe events contributed to the grumpiness shortly after waking up. Kearsyn has been awful all morning. She hasn't eaten anything, and has been crying incessantly, whenever she is awake. Tyler and I had a battle over piano practice, too, which didn't help. Tyler and I are always battling over piano practice. If he weren't so derned good at it, once he stops resisting, I'd give up on it altogether. He keeps telling me he wants to keep playing; he just wants to skip the practicing part.
The reason we're not doing school today is that Vicki, Alex, Connor, and Kenzie are at the March For Life in D.C. I wanted to go, too, but that would have been a mess, with the little'uns. Vicki and the older kids took a bus from our church at 9:30 this a.m. and won't be back until around dinner time. It figures, the first snow we get of the season is the night before all those people are supposed to turn up in D.C. for a pro-life rally. I hope it doesn't deter a big turnout. With the way Congress has turned out, I am afraid we'll have to speak louder than ever for all the unborn people. As it is, too many won't make it past birth. :o(
Friday, January 12, 2007
Mosaics
The other day, Taylor (left) found what remains of some old plastic tiles I got when we first started homeschooling; and then he got creative by making a flower. Not to be outdone, Tyler made a jellyfish (right).Tuesday, September 26, 2006
I Hate Tuesdays
Today, Tuesday, started like most days. I did a load of laundry and hung it out to dry. First load was hung by 7:00 am. One thing about using the line to dry clothes is that I have to wash clothes every day, a load at a time, instead of a bunch of loads all in one day, with the dryer burning up my wallet all day long. But, no big deal.
Then, Tuesday hit. Lots of stuff to do today so we might have started a bit rushed in order to squeeze it all in. Mistake #1. So, adrenaline was flowing to begin with. Then Tyler happened. Ugh, can he push the buttons. When we got to Language Arts, I gave the twins a brief lesson/review, I don't even remember what it was on, now. Then I asked them to answer a few questions on a worksheet. Neither of them seemed to make an attempt. Then, I asked them very leading questions, essentially giving them the answer, using the worksheet to re-teach them what I just taught them. I can always give them more exercises to show proficiency, later. Tay began to make an effort; Ty just started crying and refused to tell me what was wrong, or even that he didn't understand. He gets very stubborn, and at this point I should've just walked out the room. Mistake #2 (I stayed). I am also very stubborn, and I refuse to let a 6 year dictate my schedule. I yelled instead. He cried more, so I yelled more, thinking, stupidly, that if I gave him the answer LOUDER, he would write it down. Mistake #3. It ended in an ugly scene of him sobbing, me giving up, and nothing getting accomplished.
At this point (10:00 am), I had to take Tay to his singing class. This was fortunate as it broke up the day and allowed Ty and me time to calm down. So, I left everyone with Alex, except Ty, who wanted to ride along (I guess this means my outburst didn't leave any emotional scars: he still wanted to hang with Dad), and dropped Tay off.
Upon our return, I got out Ty's math book. We have had a stretch of good lessons in this subject. He has had no problems in Math since I made that adjustment in teaching him. Until today. My blood pressure was already pretty high, so when he turned on the tears, I began to dread math as much as he did. We were doing something that he has been doing for a week. There was no reason for him to not understand the exercise. We managed to do a few problems together without either of us getting too upset, but the peace wasn't going to last much longer. I decided to take down some dry clothes and add some wet ones to the line. This was the first smart thing I did today. When I returned, Ty had completed the exercise without me. He's such a brat :o)
I teach five kids. They are all mine. I know them each better than any teacher can know her classroom. I think I've figured out most of them, but I still have to figure out how to adjust to teach Tyler. Each of my kids requires a different approach. It totally amazes me how different each person is! I don't have any idea how a teacher teaches a classroom full of kids that aren't even from the same gene pool.
Back to my day. After lunch, we went back to the classroom. I sat down with Kenzie to review the work she'd done all morning. She is pretty independent. There a few things that I need to read to her or teach her, which I do while the twins are coloring or answering worksheet questions. But, generally, she pops over to my desk here and there for short lessons or clarifications or questions throughout the morning, as I'm working with the twins. And then we sit down at the end and go over everything she did that day and we discuss, and fix, problems and errors. By the time Kenzie and I finished, I had to pack Kenzie, Connor, and Tyler up for their piano lessons (2:00 pm). Since I didn't quite finish up with Ty, and since Tay missed some stuff during his singing, I also brought along that stuff (and Tay) to work on all that during piano lessons. Alex and Connor stayed home while Bekah took her nap.
Got home from piano around 4:00. I didn't mention that at some point earlier in the day I had reviewed Connor's work in the same fashion as Kenzie's. Connor is slightly more independent than Kenzie and, thankfully, like McKenzie, he his very bright and needs relatively few corrections when he takes his time. Connor finished everything but History today. Now it was Alex's turn. Same story. Mostly independent. Review work with me. Fix mistakes. Alex is also very bright, but he is also a teenager and does require a little more of my time. He has the biggest work load and tends to rush through his work because he sees his siblings getting finished before he does. Therefore, he tends to have a higher rate of errors and requires more teaching/reinforcement/instruction.
Now it's after 5:00 and I haven't started dinner. Somehow, I got four loads of laundry washed and hung, the kids through school, except History for Alex and Connor. We blew that off today. Just not enough time. Alex was happy about that. He had a test. Now he'll have an extra night to study for it. Somehow, I got dinner on the table by 6:00, and it wasn't a frozen job; it was a real dinner. The only saving grace for the day was that we had no soccer games tonight. If we had, there would've been no dinner until 8:00. AS it was, though, I had all the clothes folded by 7:30, Bekah in bed by 8:00, an hour or two to chill, and blogging before bed.
And by the way, about half an hour ago, Vicki went to the hospital to have her contractions checked out. I told her I had my army knife and basket ready, but she declined again. She doesn't think anything's really happening yet; she just wants to err on the side of caution. I guess I should feel a little guilty about letting her go to the hospital alone, but all the kids are in bed and it's a little late to call her mother to watch them if it's, as expected, a false alarm. The hospital's only twenty minutes away. If I'm needed, Ill get there in less than that.
Then, Tuesday hit. Lots of stuff to do today so we might have started a bit rushed in order to squeeze it all in. Mistake #1. So, adrenaline was flowing to begin with. Then Tyler happened. Ugh, can he push the buttons. When we got to Language Arts, I gave the twins a brief lesson/review, I don't even remember what it was on, now. Then I asked them to answer a few questions on a worksheet. Neither of them seemed to make an attempt. Then, I asked them very leading questions, essentially giving them the answer, using the worksheet to re-teach them what I just taught them. I can always give them more exercises to show proficiency, later. Tay began to make an effort; Ty just started crying and refused to tell me what was wrong, or even that he didn't understand. He gets very stubborn, and at this point I should've just walked out the room. Mistake #2 (I stayed). I am also very stubborn, and I refuse to let a 6 year dictate my schedule. I yelled instead. He cried more, so I yelled more, thinking, stupidly, that if I gave him the answer LOUDER, he would write it down. Mistake #3. It ended in an ugly scene of him sobbing, me giving up, and nothing getting accomplished.
At this point (10:00 am), I had to take Tay to his singing class. This was fortunate as it broke up the day and allowed Ty and me time to calm down. So, I left everyone with Alex, except Ty, who wanted to ride along (I guess this means my outburst didn't leave any emotional scars: he still wanted to hang with Dad), and dropped Tay off.
Upon our return, I got out Ty's math book. We have had a stretch of good lessons in this subject. He has had no problems in Math since I made that adjustment in teaching him. Until today. My blood pressure was already pretty high, so when he turned on the tears, I began to dread math as much as he did. We were doing something that he has been doing for a week. There was no reason for him to not understand the exercise. We managed to do a few problems together without either of us getting too upset, but the peace wasn't going to last much longer. I decided to take down some dry clothes and add some wet ones to the line. This was the first smart thing I did today. When I returned, Ty had completed the exercise without me. He's such a brat :o)
I teach five kids. They are all mine. I know them each better than any teacher can know her classroom. I think I've figured out most of them, but I still have to figure out how to adjust to teach Tyler. Each of my kids requires a different approach. It totally amazes me how different each person is! I don't have any idea how a teacher teaches a classroom full of kids that aren't even from the same gene pool.
Back to my day. After lunch, we went back to the classroom. I sat down with Kenzie to review the work she'd done all morning. She is pretty independent. There a few things that I need to read to her or teach her, which I do while the twins are coloring or answering worksheet questions. But, generally, she pops over to my desk here and there for short lessons or clarifications or questions throughout the morning, as I'm working with the twins. And then we sit down at the end and go over everything she did that day and we discuss, and fix, problems and errors. By the time Kenzie and I finished, I had to pack Kenzie, Connor, and Tyler up for their piano lessons (2:00 pm). Since I didn't quite finish up with Ty, and since Tay missed some stuff during his singing, I also brought along that stuff (and Tay) to work on all that during piano lessons. Alex and Connor stayed home while Bekah took her nap.
Got home from piano around 4:00. I didn't mention that at some point earlier in the day I had reviewed Connor's work in the same fashion as Kenzie's. Connor is slightly more independent than Kenzie and, thankfully, like McKenzie, he his very bright and needs relatively few corrections when he takes his time. Connor finished everything but History today. Now it was Alex's turn. Same story. Mostly independent. Review work with me. Fix mistakes. Alex is also very bright, but he is also a teenager and does require a little more of my time. He has the biggest work load and tends to rush through his work because he sees his siblings getting finished before he does. Therefore, he tends to have a higher rate of errors and requires more teaching/reinforcement/instruction.
Now it's after 5:00 and I haven't started dinner. Somehow, I got four loads of laundry washed and hung, the kids through school, except History for Alex and Connor. We blew that off today. Just not enough time. Alex was happy about that. He had a test. Now he'll have an extra night to study for it. Somehow, I got dinner on the table by 6:00, and it wasn't a frozen job; it was a real dinner. The only saving grace for the day was that we had no soccer games tonight. If we had, there would've been no dinner until 8:00. AS it was, though, I had all the clothes folded by 7:30, Bekah in bed by 8:00, an hour or two to chill, and blogging before bed.
And by the way, about half an hour ago, Vicki went to the hospital to have her contractions checked out. I told her I had my army knife and basket ready, but she declined again. She doesn't think anything's really happening yet; she just wants to err on the side of caution. I guess I should feel a little guilty about letting her go to the hospital alone, but all the kids are in bed and it's a little late to call her mother to watch them if it's, as expected, a false alarm. The hospital's only twenty minutes away. If I'm needed, Ill get there in less than that.
Friday, September 08, 2006
A Homeschool Breakthrough
Tyler is going to be a very high maintenance student. He has very little tolerance for his inability to immediately grasp something new, especially since his twin brother is usually the exact opposite, and understands things seemingly before I even introduce them. And when Ty gets frustrated, the whole world needs to know about it. He's very good at acting out his frustration. I have found that, for most exercises, I need to teach one of them at a time. By separating them, there is no pressure for anyone (especially me) to "keep up", and that seems to immediately end any tension.
I wrote the above paragraph this morning. Since then, we have finished all our lessons. By keeping Tay and Ty separate, we seem to have removed all obstacles to Ty's performance, at least temporarily. He performed equally as well as Tay did, even on that dreaded Math. Although I'll be essentially doubling my hands on time with the twins, I think I've discovered the way to teach them. In the past years of homeschooling, I've been fairly successful at grouping kids together, even those who are in different ages, to save on time required by all of us to get our work done. It is very ironic that, with the twins, I need to work separately, when logic would dictate that they could work together. Well, we still finished up by 1:00 (the twins finished up by 10:45), but this is Friday, and I tend to to lighten up on Friday, especially in the first week of school. But, hopefully, we've started something wonderful here.
I wrote the above paragraph this morning. Since then, we have finished all our lessons. By keeping Tay and Ty separate, we seem to have removed all obstacles to Ty's performance, at least temporarily. He performed equally as well as Tay did, even on that dreaded Math. Although I'll be essentially doubling my hands on time with the twins, I think I've discovered the way to teach them. In the past years of homeschooling, I've been fairly successful at grouping kids together, even those who are in different ages, to save on time required by all of us to get our work done. It is very ironic that, with the twins, I need to work separately, when logic would dictate that they could work together. Well, we still finished up by 1:00 (the twins finished up by 10:45), but this is Friday, and I tend to to lighten up on Friday, especially in the first week of school. But, hopefully, we've started something wonderful here.
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