An update

Jealous???? That is about 4-5 minutes from our house. We were living in place where this was right across the street like 50 steps maybe but we have since moved into a bigger place with more room (yay!) so it is a few more minutes away. Still close enough to enjoy daily if we want although the water is WAY to cold to do anything with!.

Obviously as many of you know we have moved to Washington (state) and have been here since before Thanksgiving. We are finally getting settled as much as we can considering that all of our belongings stayed behind in Missouri. Greyson is going to a preschool program 3x per week and he seems to be really enjoying it! This last week he was out due to the weather and he keeps asking each morning if he goes to school today :) I am glad he likes it!




Above is a picture of Greyson from a weekend we spent in St. Louis for the 4th of July. He loves the arch and has for quite some time now. I think this is a favorite picture of mine of his most recent pictures and I have quite a few which I will start posting soon!

I promise to try and make weekly family updates! I am going to ask Seth if he can start posting and reminding me to post since many changes are coming for the Turners! Stay tuned!

Wow has it been a week already??

My kid is so cute....................... oh and obsessed with everything Star Wars hence the light saber in hand ;)

I have every intention of updating this blog almost daily yet it has been a week since I have written a single thing....I guess this could be due to the fact that I have been super busy and Seth went out of town for a few days. Somehow yesterday and today slipped by without us so much as breaking out a pad to color in. So tomorrow afternoon after I pick up Greyson from his parents day out program and after his hour of rest I plan to at least let him work on Starfall to practice his letters. I have a busy day planned tomorrow but I am going to try and sit down tomorrow evening and map out our homeschool for the next 3.5 weeks so that all I have to do is wake up and get started.

I have been so busy the last week that I have had no time to do anything other than homework and worry about our move. Sometime today it hit me that we have less than 4 weeks to get our house packed and ready to be moved. I have to get cracking because otherwise it won't happen.... Fall is in the air and this is the time of year I like to get out and do things so packing just doesn't really appeal to me right now but it has to get done by me otherwise it won't get done.

So the rest of last week we continued to work on our map learning and Starfall. Tomorrow I plan to pick up where we left off on map work, print a ton of stuff for homeschooling, my grad school, and things for our trip. I am going to create a passport for Greyson for our trip as well as a few other fun things he can do while traveling that will also serve as his "learning".

Greyson working on Starfall. I must say that I am seriously surprised at how it only took him about .5 seconds to figure out how to work my computer!
A map of our house, obviously done by me but he got to use it to find some things in the house.
Wanna see something I love about fall?????

Fall nail colors:


and pumpkins (this is a Scentsy warmer ;) ).

Oh and this little guy who insists he make funny faces when I so much as reach for the camera now.....

Temporary homeschool organization

Just Greyson being silly!!!

I forgot that I wanted to make a post of how we are currently organizing our homeschooling things. Since we are moving in 5 weeks I decided to just stash things wherever I could fit them. So right now that means in the kitchen and some in the living room. I hope that once we get moved either 1. we will have a spare room that I can make into a "school room" or 2. I am going to get a few organizer things and make things look nicer as I really can't stand the way things are now.

First up this is how I am storing workbooks, writing pads, drawing pads and construction paper. This is a 12x12 scrapbook paper holder and it works great for this use for us.




Overall picture of where most of it is stored currently....oh and yeah that is our deep freeze it is sitting on...see why it drives me nuts??


Books stored on the bookcase in the living room:


Markers, Scissors, paint brushes and colored pencils:



Crayons, glue, and chalk:



Now this is not all of our homeschooling stuff some of it is stuffed all over the house, in the spare room, in Greyson's room, my room etc. This is just the bulk of it that is in my way!! I will post later about "curriculum" that I got for Greyson to try and work through this year. We shall see how that goes as well as what method and other plans for this year.

1st successful day of homeschooling....

Notice I said first successful. We have given it a go over the last few weeks and things were not really working. So mama had to readjust her wants, needs, and expectations and understand that even though Greyson is very bright, loves to talk and knows words and things I sometimes question how he knows he is only 4. So after I took a step back and evaluated what I really wanted him to learn in this first year of homeschooling I realized that again he is 4 and we have PLENTY of time to learn all the "other" things I was hoping we would learn this year. Right now if we can review our letters and their sounds, count to 20 and learn basic skills that I feel most children his age should know I will feel that we have accomplished something.

Yesterday afternoon after another failed attempt to homeschool I gave starfall a try and he LOVED it. I really didn't like the idea of him being on my computer but hey if it will get him to practice what he already knows then I guess that is how it is going to be. We also had our 1st swimming lesson yesterday and he loved that as well so we are going to be doing weekly lessons until we move in 5 weeks.

But back to today's post topic.....He had said a few days ago that he wanted to learn about maps, fish and Star Wars. So today we started on maps. I got the book Me on The Map to start our map learning and also purchased a .94 place mat with the United States on it, and Beginning Geography: How to read a map (this link is to the booklet you can buy with all 3 volumes in it which I should have bought!).

So we started off with reading the book Me on The Map and then we worked on drawing a map of Greyson's room. Mama decided to use a yellow marker and let Greyson trace of color in what I drew. Worked out perfectly. He loved it. Now for a few pictures :)

The beginning:

The book we used:

Hard at work!
Greyson's finished map of his room:


And just for cuteness factor our dog Sebastian :) which Greyson insisted we take a picture of. Now if only he would get busy packing up those totes behind him.........

So there you have it. This is our school day today except that Greyson played with his magnetic letter thingy I got from the teacher supply store and I plan to do a nature study with him this afternoon. I am sure I will post pictures from that tomorrow :) Today was a good DAY!

Hello again all.

Apparently because of inactivity the other blog I had is now read only, if you want to read any of that blog go here:

http://greysont.blogspot.com/

Otherwise this is the blog that I will be updating from now on.

It has been quite a long time since I have blogged about Greyson or us for that matter. Many things have changed since I last blogged and many things will be changing in the coming months. Keep reading for a family update!

We have decided that for now at least that we will be homeschooling Greyson. Homeschooling fits best with our family needs right now and later we will reevaluate and see how things looks and how well it fits with our family. Last week was our first official start of school and it had its up and downs already and I already decided that a few changes need to be made. Mistakenly I thought Greyson was ready for much more than he cares to do. So I took a step back and decided that he is only 4 and that we have many years of learning ahead and we can just have fun with this year. I will be making quite a few posts over the next few days with what we plan to do as far as homeschool is concerned.

We found out a little over a month ago that our family will be moving to Seattle, Washington area sometime in October. We have been in Missouri for about 4 years now and honestly I am ready for a change. I will miss the friends that I have made here but I look forward to the move and learning about a whole new place. I have a list of things that I want us to do once we get moved there and I can't wait to explore all the resources there for homeschooling. They have a few zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks as well as many other places that we can visit and learn. I am very excited for the move but not excited for the packing!