Little Okie Homestead

It's Monday and I don't know about other mom's but these are my cleaning days! Over the weekend we enjoy every moment we can with Daddy since he's home which normally means that the cleaning gets put off. By Monday morning my kitchen looks like this! Awful! Now imagine the rest of the house! Yep Monday's are a big day of cleaning for the kids and I. Of course a full day of cleaning sounds like no fun to myself or to the kids so I have been battling with them to get the house cleaned and it normally is an all day battle. So here is my new strategy getting help with all the work without the constant arguing. Setting a time with a 10 minute power clean and then a 20 minute play break . During our power clean we all have to have a happy heart about cleaning and clean with a purpose. For myself that means not getting angry with the boys as they play as they clean. I need to set an example and remain calm and enjoy cleaning. It also means that I clean for t...

I don't teach the alphabet! I don't teach the ABC song! Yes I know most pre-schools and even parents do this differently. So you might be wondering why I choose to do it this way? I choose to teach Monkey the letters on sight instead of just a song or just an order. I wanted Monkey to truly know his letters! I'm proud to say that he has known all of his letters by sight no matter what order they are in since he was about 2 years old! I have heard other parents express to me, "My son/daughter knows the ABC's too" when I have shared with them how Monkey is doing. I politely encourage them by saying that it's great that they know them too and I don't judge they way they choose to teach. However, I do know that there is a difference. When you sit and think about what your child knows when they sing the ABC song it really is just a song. Can they look at a word and tell you what the letters are? Most of the time they cannot. The other benefit to t...

Teaching begins very young! Some say your baby can learn from inside your body but whether or not that is true or not they do learn quickly once they come out! There are many things that you can do to help your baby learn and grow and be prepared for the learning road they have ahead of them. Today I'm focusing on reading! Goose loves reading books...well he likes listening and looking as long as he has a book in his hands that he can chew on :) We read stories throughout the day with his older brother Monkey and we have to sit with Goose otherwise he will get mad that he isn't included in reading time. Last night he did the cutest thing...he "read" the story along with me! Reading to babies can help them develop more words for their vocabulary and help them learn to talk. He sure was "talking" up a storm through our night time story time. I think it bugged Monkey a bit but he still enjoys having his brother around. Reading to babies also can he...

Teaching kids everyday is really pretty easy. Most of the time I don't even realize that I'm teaching Monkey until later when he repeats it back to me and shows me that he understands it. It's amazing to me how easy it can be. Today's "How I Everyday Teach" tip is                     Use Your Child's Interests! Monkey's interests change almost weekly. He will want to know everything he can one week about bugs then maybe next week it's farm animals or snakes. Right now we are in our 3rd week of everything dinosaurs! He just loves them! We have spent many hours reading books about this dino or that dino, struggling over how to pronounce their names, and watching Dino Dan or Dinosaur Train. I love that he is so excited to learn everything about dinosaurs he can but I have decided that this is our last week on dinosaurs. I want to stretch him out of his comfort zone and into another area of learning. We will head to...

I'm going to write several times a month on how I every day teach my boys. I know many mom's that stay home with their kids (and mom's that work) think that they need to do formal preschool with them to prepare them for school whether homeschool or public schools. I know because I use to be one of them. I started out when Monkey was just over one year old trying to do a formal learning time with him. It never worked out! Try getting a 1 year old to sit still long enough to do some formal learning. Throughout that year I struggled, felt defeated, and like a failure. I felt like I would never be able to do homeschool for Monkey because if I couldn't get him on a schedule now and keep to it how would I ever? And honestly we still have not master the art of a schedule. Well after working and struggling through that year I realized that Monkey did learn and he learned a lot just by doing everyday things with him. It's amazing how quickly he picked things up ...

We love reading in our house. Monkey loves books! The problem is he would prefer non-fiction books to fiction. So to settle this I thought about ways that I could help him with his imagination and encourage some fiction books as well. When I was a pre-kindergarten teacher I loved reading Jack and Annie books to the kids while they were laying down for nap time. I would read a few chapters right in the beginning to help them all get settled down from our activities. They loved them! Of course when I started thinking of ways to encourage Monkey to love fiction books as well  The Magic Treehouse Books  came to mind. I checked out the first book from the library, Dinosaurs Before Dark, and took it home and read the first chapter with him. Monkey was so excited to read it, mostly because it was about dinosaurs, but it kept his attention! We read it within a few days, partly because I tried to slow it down because we didn't have the next book to start. I requested the se...