Hey Everyone!
I hope everyone is safe from Hurricane Sandy this past weekend. In preparation for the storm and because the weather had already started to get bad; I decided not to take the time to post on Sunday evening like I usually do. So now that the worst is past I can go ahead and give and update on what's been going on with us. My son is progressing along great with his lessons and although he is still a busy body; I can clearly see that he is retaining what is being taught to him. So I'm just working on getting him to calm down and not be so active during class just to help his future kindergarten teacher out. I took another trip to Dollar Tree last week to see what else they had in the "Teacher's Corner". I love going here first before I take a trip to the teacher's store or Walmart for school supplies because I have been able to find tons of the things I need and more for just a dollar. Needless to say they didn't disappoint.

This week we will be focusing on the weather. Taking advantage of the hurricane and drastic change. I have a few ideas for his science skill center that will either involve creating a weather chart or some type of experiment.

In light of the new "additions" to my life, I feel the need to revamp my schedule. I haven't quite figured out how best to do this so I will be taking a brief hiatus to research some things and figure out what I want and what works best for me and my family. While I'm away click on over to one of the awesome blogs that I personally follow. The links are on the right. Check back soon and be sure to "follow me" so you will be notified once I return......

I said that this post will be quick so I'm going to end it here..... See you Soon!

I have created a series called "In and Around DC" which will chronicle our exploits in getting to know our new home and interesting places to visit in the DC/MD/VA areas. Naturally, it's only right to start with Washington, DC aka by me as "The District".


A few days ago my family and I hopped on the Metro and visited the Martin Luther King Memorial and several other monuments in on the National Mall. We had a great time just walking around. The weather was pleasant; and although it looked like it would rain, it never did. This was our first time seeing the MLK Memorial and we were quite impressed. Although this was not our first time in DC it was the first time we went and were able to take pictures.

The Washington Monument- Washington, DC            

My son loves visiing the mall and seeing the "big pencil" (Washington Monument) and I enjoy seeing his excitement. He's at that age where his brain is starting to store life memories and I intend to fill it with tons of them.

A few of the other sites we visited were the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Roosevelt Memorial

We ended the day with our packed lunches and although we didn't eat them on the Tidal Basin like we planned, it was still delicious.




A recurring problem I am having with my oldest son is the fact that he is constantly needing to be reminded that he is in "school" and not just at home doing some learning stuff. Because our current place is so small, and because I have a 3 month old along with other house responsibilities that I handle during school hours; I have to use the dining area as the school area for ease and maximum visibility. I have begun to close off the room doors and block off the living room area with my ottoman so he can have a clear distinction of where "school" and "home" are. He's got the basic concept but he has a hard time resisting the temptation to go "home" when he should be in "school". So the phrases I commonly hear my self starting to say now are "go to school and get out of home" and "I'm in home now you can't talk to me". Lol, it's hilarious to me at the end of the day when I think about how silly I sound; and how frustrated I sometimes get. But I know eventually it will pay off with patience and consistency.

Are you homeschooling your child?

I just LOVE Fall don't you?!?!?!

We've been getting back into the swing of things around here and one of the things I tackled this week was decorating the house for Fall. We don't really celebrate Halloween around here as we are a christian home; but we do celebrate in the harvest. At our church we have Harvest Night on Oct 31st where we play games and have arts and crafts, and of course candy. So the same goes in our home. While there are no witches or spiders, etc I decorated with hay, leaves, pumpkins and other gourds, etc.

My mother, who loves this time of year, has helped me cultivate quite a collection of fall decorations. The focal point of the decor this year was my fireplace; I don't have a mantle, oh how I wish I did, but I improvised with the small space in front of the fireplace itself. I also did my front porch and added a few small elements to my dining room table. I'm very happy with how it all turned out. I did my happy dance a few times and went snap happy with my cellphone. Unfortunately I only remembered to take pics during the work in progress stage, so I have no pics of the finished product. Arrrggh!!! You live and you learn. Anywhoo, here's how it all looks...somewhat

Homeschooling:

I have been doing lite "homeschooling" with my oldest son since he was about 2 years old. But now that he is four and about to head to Kindergarten; and he hasn't consistently been in a formal school setting (no daycare or preschool), I wanted to be sure that he was as equipped as I could possibly make him. In addition to that I could use this time to get teaching practice as I finish up my teaching degree and kind of work out the kinks and find my teaching niche. That being said, I am sort of overwhelmed at how serious of a task this is and how important it is for me not to fail. Fortunately, I have the constant support of my wonderful husband and my amazing mother; who just happens to be a retired teacher with over 30 years of experience.

We started learning about the Fall season. I began by telling him why it was called Fall and what months are in the season. Then I made up an activity sheet with different types of leaves and had him color them as we talked about the various characteristics of fall leaves and colors of fall. I love teaching about the seasons; and since I almost always decorate my home to accompany the season, thanks to my mother :), I have tons of little "teaching aids" readily available. Later in the week we went outside picked different leaves and pine cones (which for some reason I keep calling acorns *shrugs*) and examined how different they were and why they thought they were different shapes, sizes, colors, etc. Then for math we counted how many different leaf colors we had and made a graph to represent them. He really loved this activity and did very well with it.

This week was an overall good beginning week. I am very proud of the things that my son already knows. It wasn't until I sat him down and created a classroom setting with him and began to give him assignments and start the teaching process that I realized how much he actually knew and how eager he is to learn. I can't wait to continue on this week and the future weeks/months to come.

What are you doing for Fall?

So I am here... at the beginning. Not really sure what I plan to do with this blog or if it's something I really want to do. I mean I want to do it, but will I have the time or should I say the "will" to keep up with it when my schedule goes from on paper to in action. As it seems right now I will be able to fit blogging into my schedule so I'm starting this with definite plans to be "subject to change". Then there's the question of what will I blog about.

 I wanted to name this blog "Hearts @ Home" because I didn't want to be tied to just one main subject. The only subject I was willing to be tied to was "home"; and that's because to me it served as an umbrella for all of the topics I intend to discuss. Even more so now, since my recent illness and the birth of our second son (Chipmunk); I will semi-indefinitely be a stay at home mom. But I did a internet search of this title and I found it was used waay too much. So then I started thinking about how I'm constantly having to keep up with my boys and there messes; and I kinda like what I came up with.

While I am somewhat heartbroken about recent developments in my health; I intend not to focus on the negative. Instead I will use this time to cultivate and nurture my home and all of it's inhabitants.

I'm excited to see what this blog blossoms into and what opportunities arise from this new project.

My name is Shar.

Thanks for clicking on my new blog. I'm both excited and nervous to be taking on this endeavor. This is a very big "step out of the box" moment for me. I am the last person to want to be in the spotlight for all the world to see. But after months and months of reading blogs, I want to try and throw my hat in the ring.

Right now I have no goals for what I want to achieve or accomplish with this blog. Other than just creating a place where I share my thoughts and whatever else I chose.

I've been working on starting this blog for about a month. Trying to come up with a name and exactly what I wanted to blog about. I still haven't worked everything out but I don't want to wait any longer. So consider this a work in progress. Don't be surprised if you visit the blog and things have changed. I will tweak it until I'm satisfied with it. Nothing is off limits any and everything is fair game for change until it gets right.

But for now the site is going live as is.

This is the point of no return....