Yes, I know...

I skipped a day. That's going to happen though. I have a real life too. And unfortunately, my imaginary life is much more organized than my real life.

We ended up making paper bag gingerbread men and ginger hamsters. They are very cute. And since it's two days later and the kids have all but forgotten about the gingerbread cookies, I have all of the stuff. I'm going to mix it up tonight so that after school tomorrow we can dive right in with the cookie cutters. Wish me luck.

Oh, and tonight we read a bunch of books because I was desperate to calm them down. It didn't work, but we read:


Of Course Polly Can Do Almost Everything by Astrid Lindgren. It's a translation from the Swedish. I think the book is out of print, but you can get copies from amazon for cheap. Jason gave me this one when he bought every Astrid Lindgren book in both Swedish and English. So every time I read this, I am reminded of how well taken care of I am. So I like this for a lot of different reasons!


A Pussycat's Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown. Which I didn't like at all. And really, I'm not a fan of Goodnight, Moon either, although everyone else seems to be.
I really, really liked this one. It shows sand and that Joseph was wearing sandals and the shepherds were out sleeping while watching the sheep. It's good to read a Christmas story that doesn't talk about snow.

We didn't do any crafts tonight, but I have a couple of other A. Lindgren books to read with the kids and we'll make Christmas heart ornaments for the tree. We might make some other things typically Swedish, but we'll see about that. I'm getting too many craft ideas for my own good.

Oops

I just thought I had a bunch of brown felt. I don't!

So I think we'll do something like this.

Christmas, Christmas time is here

(sung in a nasally, chipmunky type of voice.)

So I've decided to post what we're doing each day to get ready for Christmas. And, maybe, if the stars align and I can get myself together, post what my plans are for tomorrow. We'll see, that might be way too ambitious.

Going back in time:

Sunday, November 30:

We read the book Cranberry Christmas and made the cranberry cookie recipe off of the back. I also remembered that I don't actually like cranberries. Oh, and I didn't have the walnuts the recipe called for, so I substituted white chocolate chips. Sadly, that didn't help and I still didn't like the cookies. The kids of course did, but Jason decided that they looked like hunks of raw meat. We gave them to the neighbor after this and I made a pan of brownies. Other than that, we liked the story.

Monday, December 1

We started on the Advent calendar from the Friend. We read a scripture and talked about it and the picture. The picture is great for Annika--she can have something visual while the boys are reading. There are a bunch of other calendars on the Friend site that I like a lot, but I'm just doing this one since it's so easy to keep up with.

It seems like we read a book, but I've already forgotten which one. It's sad, this whole mommy-brain thing.

Tuesday (today)

We read the scripture for today and looked at the picture. Annika tormented Emma with the picture. We had to kick her out so we could actually have our little spiritual moment. We made little handprint Rudolphs from Family Fun. They don't look exactly like the picture, but isn't that the point. It also would have helped if I actually had any red pompoms. But I do have a ton of little red sparkly things, so the day was saved. Oh, and Sam decided that his Rudolph needed a beard instead of antlers, so his is a little scary. But it was fun. It kept the kids' attention for more than twenty minutes which is a true miracle.

And since we had the pipe cleaners, oh, I mean the chenille stems, out, we twisted a red one with a white one and made candy canes. They were more proud of those than the Rudolphs.

At bedtime we read The Gingerbread Man. That was fun--"you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." If I had actually planned this, I would have the molasses and dark brown sugar to make gingerbread men tomorrow. But I didn't so, I think we'll make faux gingerbread folk from Family Fun. Strangely, I do have a ton of dark brown felt.

It sounds like a lot. But really it isn't. We did what was fun until it wasn't and there was no stress. And, as you read, very little planning. I do have a list of things that are important for me do before Christmas, so we will make sure to do that and if we fit anything else in, great. If not, there's always next year!

Oh, in the interest of full disclosure, I've been trying to make this Advent calendar for several days now. I think I finally have all of the stuff, so I'm starting on it tonight. Yes, I'm starting on my December calendar on December 2!

Annika today

We had a little "tea party." We had juice and little cookies while I read her a couple of books. We read Roxaboxen, A Visitor for Bear, and Piggies.

I love spending time just with Annika and she just eats it up. I really miss homeschooling, more than I can say, but the time I get to spend one-on-one with the kids helps to make up for it.

Neither of us said anything profound or memorable, but our little juice and cookies party is something I hope Annika will remember. Even if she doesn't remember this one specifically, I hope she remembers that we did it at all.

I've Decided...

that this blog will become my "afterschooling" blog.

That means that I will chronicle the intentional learning things I do with my children in it. From the preschool-type stuff with Annika, the reading practice with Sam, the subtraction with Harry, and the playing with Emma, I'll try to list it here. I miss homeschooling more than anyone knows, but it's not the right time to bring them home. Sam, in particular, is doing great at kindergarten.

Fortunately, though, I do have time before and after school with the kids that I can use to teach them what I think is especially important. So, that's my plan. Let's hope that I can actually fulfill my intentions!

Sam's Kindergarten Orientation...

I'm going to start this post with a brief look back on Harry's kindergarten orientation.

Two years ago, I took Harry over to his old school and went into the kindergarten room where I met his two teachers who went over a bit about their classroom. His teachers went over the rules of their room and how they were one person in two. Then I was told to leave Harry head over to the cafeteria. The principal spoke to all of us parents about how our job was basically over and the kids were now theirs to do with what they will. Okay, so she didn't actually use those terms, but that was the gist of the talk. She also talked about how kindergarten is now really academic and the kids would need to do lots of work and listen and sit for a long time.

There was more, but that was the first warning about how kindergarten was going to go.

Contrast that with today. Sam and I walked into the cafeteria where the principal welcomed us and turned the time over to the teachers. There are five total, three morning classes and two afternoon. They briefly talked about how kindergarten would work and we went over to the classes. The only thing that gave me pause was one of the teachers saying, "if the kids are five minutes late, that's five minutes of learning time they miss." My thought was, "oh, no, whatever shall we do." But hey, apparently I'm a total rebel.

We went back to the classroom where his teacher (who is really, really tall) asked the kids to line up and practice walking out to meet the parents picking them up. Sam froze. I led him out with the other kids and left him standing there. He was with the kids, but not really with them. His teacher told the kids they could go find their parents and Sam just stood there. I wanted to see what she would do, how she would handle Sam just freezing.

Sam had brought a book to show the teacher, so I went over and asked Sam to show it to her. He just opened right up! He told her all about the bionicles in the book. Miss B listened and talked to him. It was great. She spend at least 10 minutes just talking with him about Bionicles and this little seal toy he had in his pocket. He was eating up the attention and really liked her. Finally it was time to leave and he kind of froze up again, but he was still doing okay. I was able to tell Miss B that he is really, incredibly shy and there is no magic key for solving it. He just has to make the decision to keep moving. I also totally impressed her by telling her that Sam can read on a third grade level and that he actually read the Bionicle book he brought with him.

When we got back in the car, Sam told me that I was right, she is really nice!

New School Orientation

So, after all of the kids left yesterday, we high-tailed it over to the school. I don't know if I mentioned it, but the school is brand new. In fact, they are still finishing a few things up. We hadn't been able to be on campus until the PTO meeting Tuesday night, and the official tour was not until yesterday evening.

The school is gorgeous--as much as a modern school can be. The kindergarten rooms are attached to the administration building and they have their own playground. It's small, but I like that they will be by themselves. The rooms have high ceilings and lots of light. They seem inviting. The teachers have baskets of books out and I hope Sam will have time to read some of them. Harry's room is smaller, which makes sense--there are 33 kids in Sam's room and 20 in Harry's. His teacher had their reading books out, so we flipped through them. So easy. In fact Harry pointed out that "they have lots of big pictures and hardly any words." Something to talk to the teacher about, but not something to freak out about. Both of their rooms have lots of things on the walls and seem very cheery.

The school library is filled with light. I took a sneak peak at the books, some of them are very good, but there are a lot of others I'd like to see, so I think I'll have to donate a few. They have no less than five copies of each of the Harry Potter books, which Harry thought was funny! The helpers and guides were all fifth graders and were very talkative. I liked that they all spoke well with me, a grown-up they didn't know.

Overall, the building impressed me. The teachers seemed nice and happy to be there. They were talkative and good with the kids. I think part of it was that they are relieved to be in their rooms and have the school mostly finished. I also know that the school building doesn't matter a bit if the teachers aren't good, so I need to keep my full opinion for after school starts.

But my first impression is positive. Yay!

It's Getting Closer and Closer...

I really don't want to send the boys to school. The time is getting shorter and shorter and I'm panicking. Not really panicking, but just very emotional. I will do this and I'll only show them how excited I am, but inside...I really don't want them to go.

The Curse of Low Expectations

I went to my first PTO meeting last night at the kids' new school and I ran smack up against what I am calling "The Curse of Low Expectations." It's the attitude that what we have is fine, it's all we'll ever going to get and nothing will ever change, so why ask.

Example One:

I was looking at the kindergarten playground which has one small structure for up to 90 kids to play on and mentioned to another mom that it seemed small. Her response, "well, they only have 20 minutes to have their snack and play, so it's okay."

Really--I would think that since they only have 20 minutes to play, we'd like it to be spent playing, not waiting to play.

Example Two:

There is no art or music taught at the school. None. And it's not a priority for the school. However, if the PTO wants to pay art and music teachers we can. Doesn't that seem odd to you?

Those are the two main examples that came up last night. I'm sure there will be more as they actually start school!

Now I'm repeating my new mantra: "They will be fine, they will make friends, they will have fun, they will be fine."

What Do I Want?

I want a perfect school. Preferably one that I can take the kids to in the morning and pick them up at lunchtime. That way they will get to have school, I'll get some time and we will have most of the day together. No homework unless absolutely needed--in case they don't understand something and need more practice.

A school where they read good books--not parts of books and not readers. But actual good books. Ones that I would select. And once they are finished with the book, the kids would narrate back to the teacher what they read. That way they would learn how to discuss and learn from others. One where printing is actually taught, not to be picked up by osmosis. Because osmosis only really works in science. A school that teaches how to write as fluidly as they teach narration. If you read good books and require kids to narrate, their writing will reflect that. Their spelling will too, for the most part. But if spelling does need to be taught as it's own subject, it won't be with little lists, but again by reading good books and absorbing how language works. Grammar would be taught early, but not in a manner that the kids circle all of the verbs, but by using the whole body and things around them. I want Language Arts to be taught as something that they use all of the time, not just in class.

Math would not be taught using guessing. There is one right answer in math and if you aren't right, you are wrong. It sounds harsh, but I'd rather my doctor be someone who actually knows the right answer instead of one who is told to guess for it. I'm probably crazy like that.

Science would start with nature studies and how the world works. Not with textbooks and by reading about experiments, but by getting outside and being part of the world.

Social Studies would be banned. Kids would learn history instead of about firemen and mayors. Geography would be a major part of their history lessons. The past would be taught using stories about the people who came before them. The children would learn that where things happened is just as important as what happened and why.

Art and music would be integral to the lessons. The children would have time to get up and move and play.

There's more to my perfect school, but let me end there for now.

Feel the Power!

I already wrote about visiting with the principal and my concerns with Sam's teacher. Well, the principal said that he would try to put Sam in the teacher's class, but that the morning kindergarten was full, so he might put him into the afternoon class that has a different, also good, teacher. Then I spoke with the secretary who said that both of these classes were full and he would be in the class of one of the teachers we didn't want in the afternoon.

I had a very frustrated moment, then got back on the phone with the principal who said he'd straighten everything out. And he did!

Thank goodness. Sam is going to morning kindergarten with the really good teacher, Miss B. He's actually really excited and keeps looking at the paper with his teacher on it. I'm excited too. This school experiment just might work out after all!

Another Thing...

I don't think that people understand. I'm not sending the boys to school because homeschooling didn't "work" or that I couldn't handle it or that they weren't listening or it was too hard. I'm sending them because it is time.

Sure, I pulled Harry from kindergarten because of issues we had with the school, but sending him in the first place wasn't planned. I had planned on keeping him home for kindergarten.

It really is a lifestyle. I enjoy spending my days with my children. I enjoy teaching them and being the one to watch their eyes light up when they discover a new interest. There probably isn't a parent out there that would say they didn't. But for a year and a half, I was the one to introduce everything to Harry. I got to see everything. And not all of it was sweetness and light. Some of it was quite difficult. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. That's another part of why this is such a difficult transition.

A good meeting

I met with the principal this morning. He answered all of my questions and I really got a good feeling from him. The meeting wasn't long, but it did help me feel better about sending the kids. One of the final things he said was to give him a chance and let him surprise me with how good things are. So I think I will give him the chance. If the school really does what they want to, it will be a good place.

There's more to come, but I need to play with my kids now. Bunco is tomorrow night and I'm hosting, so tomorrow is going to be a whirlwind of preparation.

Don't they understand...

that I do have a choice?

I just got a vaguely threatening call from the school. The attendance secretary is very concerned that she doesn't have proof of Sam's latest physical and dental appointments. Apparently she can't assign him to a teacher until she has that. And "the school is filling up quickly, of course."

Oh no, whatever will I do?! I'll have to...oh don't say it...homeschool?! The horror.

That's not completely true--since he is in the district they will have to find a place for him at one of the other schools nearby. Which would be an issue because as far as I know, Harry is in at the new school. This isn't the first time I've heard this and I have yet to see a line forming outside of the school.

If

you have a major decision to grapple with, and you're not quite sure how to do it, I would suggest that you have visitors come for the next few weeks. That will give you plenty to do while you process the decision. Once the visitors leave, you will have more or less come to terms with it magically while you are so busy.

Or at least that's my experience. Sort of. We had family come for the last three weeks of July--right after the decision to send the boys to school was made. First my Mom, and then almost all of Jason's family. So we got real busy and I just didn't have time to dwell on sending the boys.

However, that can backfire too. Once everyone left, I was a little bummed because I missed everyone and now I'm spending my time dreading sending them to school. I know I'm being melodramatic, and honestly, I don't care. When I think of them in school I get weepy and my stomach hurts.

I'd like to say that that this transition will be easier for them than for me--but I don't know that. There are just too many "what-ifs." I look at my children and they are so innocent, I wonder if the kids in their classes will make fun of them for that. I was teased unmercifully all through middle school, what if it starts earlier in school now?

Anyway, hopefully it will be more difficult for me. I'm trying to focus on the good parts of sending them to school. I bought Sam his backpack last week and he's taken it everywhere with him. He'd like to where it to bed, but he can't sleep on it! He's excited to go to kindergarten. They have reference for that since Harry went for a few months and it was fun and exciting.

Oh yeah, so tomorrow morning I have an appointment with the principal to talk to him about the kids. I have a list, but if you were able to ask a principal anything you could (with regards to school), what would you ask him?

Thanks,
Felicity

They're In!

I registered the boys this morning for school. So it's official.

It was pretty easy and straightforward. Part of me feels better now that I've met someone from the school and part of me just wants to run screaming the other way. As I said, the school is brand new and the plans are just beautiful. Strangely enough they are putting boulders in as decoration and you know the kids are all going to want to climb on them and they won't be allowed to. There is a preschool on-site, so maybe Annika will join the boys over there. (I'm kidding, although she did just dump an entire bottle of laundry soap into the dryer. Any more of that and she'll be off to boarding school.)

The library has it's own building which is fairly big and our school district does still have librarians, which apparently, for our area, is rare. Sam's speech service will be in a little room, one on one, which is nice. Sam will have 33 in his class and Harry only 20. The secretary that I talked to thinks that the kindergarten should be full day so they have more instructional time. Which, obviously, I disagree with.

The classes are all integrated, so 70% of the kids in any one class will be esl. The party line for that is "well, it's the area we live in." Yes, I know that, but it doesn't make me feel better about sending my kids to school.

I was pleased that when I asked to have an appointment with the principal, the answer was, "when would you like to come in? Is tomorrow good for you?" That in itself says a lot.

But, I have to go now, we have a housefull of family to hang out with. I just wanted to update the saga.

A Wrinkle

Or maybe a crease.

I've been intentionally surrounding myself with people that are pro-public school. That way if I start to waver or get worried about something, the automatic answer won't be, "just keep them home." But today I got a call from a friend who homeschools and who, I'm sure won't understand why they are going to school in the fall. I really like this woman--she is incredibly friendly and nice, but I'm afraid that she will try to sway me back to homeschooling. And since I'm already kind of freaked out about everything, I'll just get more worried.

This is actually the opposite problem that I see with people who homeschool--they don't talk to many people about it because they might try to change their mind.

Apparently this post is going nowhere, but if I want to keep being friends with her, how do I do that? Honestly, I know that academically and in just about every other way homeschooling is a thousand times better than regular school, but they are going anyway. It's not something I can explain well (obviously), so I think I'll just have to bow out of this friendship for a while.

I knew this was going to be hard, but why does it keep just getting harder and harder by the day?

Preparation

According to well, everybody, the principal at the new school is the best in the district and maybe on the planet. And he got to pick the best teachers from the existing schools to teach at the new school. Seriously, this guy had better be good or everyone I've talked to this week will have a lot of explaining to do.

So knowing that, I've been asking around to find the best of the best teachers. There is definite consensus for second grade, but not for kindergarten yet. Hopefully that will come, seeing as I'm going in on Wednesday morning to formally register them. I have to take their birth certificates, immunization records, physical forms and dental forms. I'm also planning to take the forms from some tests Harry took last year showing that he reads at a higher level, another set of tests for Sam's reading. I also have to take Sam's IEP for speech so he can continue to receive services.

I'm getting everything organized and planning to play the "I'm-a-homeschool-mom-that's-really-nervous-about-this-and-I-won't-send-my-kids-here-(giving you about $15,000 a year)-unless-I-get-what-I-want" card. I'm a much smarter public-school Mom than I was when Harry started kindergarten.

Crossing the Rubicon

Yesterday we read in Story of the World about Caesar's return to Rome, even though he knew that he would be arrested. Apparently he stopped at the Rubicon River and told his men that once they crossed things would change and asked if they were ready. Of course, Caesar being Caesar went on and crossed the Rubicon. We've been talking about how the phrase, "crossing the Rubicon" has come to mean a decision that can't be undone.

Well, I feel as though I'm probably crossing the Rubicon with my almost certain decision to send the boys to school next year. It's not totally certain until the day school starts (when of course, we'll be on vacation), but I'd say 90%.

I can only explain this decision one way--by talking about the Church Relief Society lessons I've been giving lately, especially the one from the last Sunday on Obedience. There was a phrase in the lesson that said something like, "you ask for the answer, then you follow the answer, what every it may be." I expanded that a little in talking about integrity and the fact that you didn't have to ask, but once you did, you are pretty much obligated to follow the direction.

I asked, thinking I knew the answer. But I still asked one night about whether I should keep the boys home. And the answer was very clear. I need to send them to school. So you see, I asked and I got an answer--not the one I wanted, but an answer nonetheless.

There is a lot going on in my mind right now. I'm trying really hard to be excited and not worry. I'm really trying hard not to focus on the things I had planned for next year and focus instead on preparing them to go to school.

Honestly, I think one of the hardest things for me to accept is that I won't be a teacher any more. I'll still have Annika and Emma home and Sam for part of the day, but I won't have to make the formal plans I've done in the past. I don't need to plan out my day in terms of Math, Reading, Science and History. I won't need to pore through books finding the best way to teach this or that. Being a homeschool mom has allowed me to hold onto some of the more "adult" parts of my identity even while spending the days with my children. And I'll miss that. A lot. I expect that I'll be at loose ends for a while. I'll need to find a new identity that I can live with and be excited about.

This is getting pretty long, but allow me to indulge in this just a bit longer. I think I'll chronicle our lives getting ready to go to school in the next month or so and the first part of the school year in this space and then close it down. This is going to be really hard, wish us all luck please.

notable quotables

(in deference to my kids' love of Jeopardy)

Heard around the house today:

Sam: "It isn't fun, but it sure is easy." About an activity book he was working on--I told him he didn't need to do any of it if it wasn't fun, but he just replied that it was easy. Okay then!

Annika, with great joy and excitement in her voice: "Mama, I'm going to be five too, just like Sam-boy!"

Annika, confused to Harry, "Why do you call Baby Jane, 'Emma'?" Um, I don't know, maybe because it's her name. Oddly enough she said "Emma," not "Enna." She actually used the m sound, the absence of which is driving her speech teacher crazy.

What's the Plan, Stan?

I cleaned up the loft Thursday morning because I couldn't let Marty and Jenny see it in the incredibly messy state it was in. But also because I just couldn't think in there any more. There were books and papers everywhere. It wasn't so much that the room was embarrassing (although it was) it was more that it wasn't functional any longer as a place to learn. And that in itself is embarrassing.

But no more. I cleaned it! I cleaned out the big cabinet, all of the random drawers, my files...everything. It felt so good.

Now that I don't have to think about that anymore, I can move onto other, bigger and more interesting things.

Things like:
1. What books should I have Harry and Sam read next year?
2. What books and activities should I use from the SOTW 2 Activity Book next year?
3. How can I organize a little area for Annika to do "preschool" in?
4. How do I deal with Sam's speech next year--do I need to advocate more for two thirty minute sessions in a week or can he handle one full hour session?
5. I really need to call early intervention for Annika to get her into the preschool speech program as soon as school starts next year.
6. How am I going to be able to teach two very different curricula next year? (Something that causes worry and concern, but that I know will come together.)
7. What composers and artists should I focus on next year and what does that really mean?

So really I'm in a planning mode for next year and it does feel good. I love planning. Now, if I could just stick to the plan for more than a week. That would probably be helpful.

a good start

Mondays tend to be our best day and this was no exception.

This morning we did:
History--discussed the Buddha and Buddhism
Math--more addition and review
Spelling--his final test from last week, still having a hard time with "a" blends
Readings--Farmer Boy, Eldest
Grammar--review of a poem by Christina G. Rosetti

Weekly Planning

I love planning and organizing. Things go smoother in our lives if I've got some idea of what comes next. That doesn't mean I always follow the plan, but thinking ahead is always good. So I created a chart to guide us through our learning week.

Another thing to remember is that we don't do something in each column each week. And a lot of the lessons that we actually do are "read this story" or "do one page." Remember that when you scroll down to the bottom and see a lot of subjects.

I just pencil in the lesson or the pages we're working on. Then after we've done the work I'll write it in the day. I know that doesn't make much sense, but the chart is less for me to plan out which day I'm going to do what and more so I can be aware of what I need to do in order to stay on top of something.

For instance, if we're on math lesson 34, after Harry does page 34a on Monday, I'll write it in, if he doesn't do math again until Thursday, I'll write under Thursday that he did 34 b and d. If it's a reading that we're doing, I'll write the chapter or page numbers in the appropriate days.

I write down Harry's narrations on the back and when the week is over, I file all of the sheets in my "records" notebook.

It's much easier than I'm making it seem. Here's the link to my planning sheet.

Oh, I don't usually use google docs, so if you know how to make the grid lines, please let me know. It's driving me crazy!

Harrius the Mighty, 2008, part one

While Sam is going to be happily painting and drawing and playing with gnomes, Harry is going to work, work, work. Yep, no slacking for him!

This is true, but only to a point. He's going into second grade with a fifth grade reading ability and third grade math ability. He knows more history than most adults (you should see him watching Jeopardy) and he is interested in almost everything. My trouble with him is that we both like to do everything--it's all interesting and there isn't enough time in the day to do as much as we'd like. So my challenge is to simultaneously spur him on to learn all of the interesting things he wants to, but also direct him to the things he needs to know.

I don't think I made a mistake necessarily in his first grade year by expecting so much from him--the grammar and spelling and math, but I do think I could have slowed down a bit and not thought it was so important that he learn it all RIGHT NOW. So, I want him to grow and learn of course, but maybe not quite in the same quick way he has been.

That said, not a whole lot is changing for him this next year.

We'll continue with:
1. Math U See--it's working, it's really working. He'll finish Beta over the summer, I think and start Gamma next year.
2. First Language Lessons--we're still plugging along with that. I think the idea is to do a lesson every day. We do a lesson every few days. I don't think the world will spin off of it's axis.
3. Story of the World, Volume Two--hands down, Harry's favorite part of his school day. And the next volume is about the medieval period. Even I'm excited.

Stuff we won't keep using:
Spelling Workout--I hate, hate, hate it. Total busywork, no connections. It gives a list of ten words to memorize with no real rule introduced. Then you are expected to generalize from those ten words to the rest of the English language. That's fine, Harry's doing well with it. His spelling is very good and he doesn't hate it. But it's just too much busywork and I don't have time in my life for busywork (that may explain my kitchen floors).

New Stuff to Try and Use:
1. Writing with Ease by Susan Wise Bauer. I love SOTW and I'm pretty sure I'll love this one. It's not handwriting, but a guide to begin actual writing. I'm excited to see it and use it.
2. Simply Spelling. Also a new one for me. I need something for spelling and it came down to this one and Spelling Wisdom. This won out because it has a clear plan on how to use it. I like clear plans. They help me when the world does go off of it's axis.

Semi-new Stuff:
1. Literature Pockets. This is mostly for Sam, but Harry will be reading along too, as will Annika, so I'm getting this for all of us. We've used the History Pockets for Ancient History and it's been a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to these.

The List of Maybes:
1. Song School Latin. Harry REALLY wants to learn Latin. In fact when I was talking to Celeste about possibly doing Latin next year, he started jumping for joy. Who am I to deny him his hearts desire. Since I know next to no Latin, I need something to teach it for me. Hence, Song School Latin. I'm hoping it will be a fun and gentle approach. More because I'm worried about it than I think Harry will need it. The biggest problem I have with this is the fact that it's songs. I'm not big into listening to kids sing a lot. I like my own, but I'm afraid it'll be some Latin "Wee Sing" thing. We'll see.
2. Handwriting Without Tears, Cursive. I'm not sure about this. He wants to learn "fancy writing," but he's still improving his regular writing. I'm leaning toward "no" but I might request it, then say "no, thanks."

There are a few other things I'm going to request, but I'm not going to list here because it's late and I don't want to. As I narrow the list down, I'll try to let you know what other supplementary things I'm planning to use and what I'm planning for science.

Sir Sam William the Conqueror 2008

This is what I have planned for Sam's kindergarten year:

Oak Meadow First Grade

Right now I'm planning on using a prepackaged curriculum for Sam. What does that mean, you ask? Well, it means that I get everything in one big box and it tells me what to use when.

For example, it will tell me "on week one, day one, do this math, this reading, this..." The Oak Meadow program covers all of the subjects, so there is very little prep for me. I like that. I do enough prep for a couple of homeschooling families, so I'll be happy to have it taken out of my hands for this.

One of the other cool things about OM is that it's Waldorf-inspired. The company used to say it followed Waldorf teachings, but it doesn't, but it's still flavored with that thinking. Again, you are asking "what in the world does Waldorf mean, isn't that just a big salad?" Well, yes, it is a salad, but I'm not planning to eat Sam's work for the year. It's an idea that everything should be natural and happy and flowy. In Waldorf schools they don't begin teaching reading until 2nd grade, so obviously we aren't Waldorf in that sense, but I like many other things they do. They teach with stories and Sam loves stories. So math is about gnomes who do things like add sticks and rocks. When you learn the alphabet you learn that the shape of the letter is something that looks like it. For instance, a 'g' looks like a goose ducking in the water.

There is also a huge emphasis on the arts. So Sam will be drawing and painting and finger knitting. This is all stuff he loves and he would do anyway, so I'm kind of directing it toward lessons. He's also going to learn the recorder and the piano (if we can ever find a keyboard; don't ask). Those are things Harry's going to learn too.

Since he is already reading, I need to work on that separately, but that's pretty easy. I have about a thousand booklists already, so I'll pick and choose from that.

Sam will still have speech twice a week, but he'll have to get used to another teacher. That's something I'm not looking forward to. But he's growing and I think he can make the transition. It might not be completely painless, but it should be at least bloodless.

So that's the plan. I've already told the school what I want, and they're pretty okay with it all. Now I just have to wait and wait to get the books. That's the hard part!

Thinking Ahead

So this is the time of the year when I need to think about next year. Since we are with a school, we run on their schedule. The year "ends" in early June and "begins" in late August. Right now I'm putting our orders in for September.

The biggest change is that Sam will be in Kindergarten, so I need to think about what to get for him. Should I do the same as I am with Harry or branch out to something different? He's reading on a 1st to 2nd grade level now, but his writing and math aren't quite that high. The curriculum I'm using with Harry is obviously working--he's doing very well according to the testing they do at the school, but they are such different kids.

The other thing I'm thinking about is what worked and didn't work this year for everyone. I started the year out kind of Charlotte Mason inspired. I used ambleside online for a lot of the readings and books that I used. Unfortunately some of the books bombed, one of them was too offensive for me use, and it just didn't work with what I wanted from our homeschool. So we began adding in more grammar and spelling--workbooks and just lessons. Harry (and Sam, when he wanted to listen) learned a lot, but most of it was boring, repetitive work with very little connection to life and to Harry. I'd like to figure out how to best take what I like from Charlotte Mason and ambleside and add it to what I like and need from the more classical approach.

These are the thoughts floating around in my head right now. For next year I'd like to:
1. have a theme for the year, both for the boys individually and for the family.
2. make connections between what they are learning and their lives.
3. get out more and do more "fun stuff." We do quite a bit, but with gas prices so high we've curtailed a lot of our field trips. I'd like to add some of them back in.
4. figure out how to get Annika more involved with our schooling and spend time just with her. I'm thinking about preschool for her next year. She needs other kids and while we've got quite a few here, she needs other two-to-three-year-olds on a regular basis.

So, if anyone has a magic curriculum that will answer all of these things, let me know. In the meantime, I'll post my ideas for next year in the next few days.

Monday--Fighting, Writing

and experimenting...

The day started by arguing with Harry about his attitude. You just know that when I write "attitude" things aren't going real well.

Eventually he came out of his funk and brought me the work he did. Only it was completely a mess, so he had to redo it. I think I told him he could do it later since I wanted the whole morning to end.

I wrangled him out of the playroom to do some math--adding three or four numbers in a line. I told him that it was tower math and to climb the tower, he had to add. He did fine.

Spelling is getting trickier for him, he's still getting the answers right, but he has to think about it more. On the other hand, he gets really excited when the answer is right, so his struggling isn't all a bad thing. He did the section I told him to, then asked if he could do the next one also because it was a crossword puzzle. I of course said, "yes."

We began The Great Avocado Experiment today. We put avocado pits in water, a wet paper towel in a plastic bag, and in some dirt today. The experiment is to see which sprouts first. Hopefully one of them will. We also read some books on seeds and plants and both boys drew a seed and labeled it.

Harry read "The Laconic Answer" to me and we talked about it. I love 50 Famous Stories. I'll be so bummed when we're finished with it.

So that's all of the official school stuff we've done today. Now I'm off to figure out the curriculum for next year. It sounds like way more fun than it really is!

The Time Travelling Roman

by Harry

One day when Harrius the Mighty was fighting the Gauls, he almost lost. There were 100 Romans fighting 200 Gauls. Harrius ordered his legionnaires with javelins to throw their javelins at the remaining Gauls and his horsemen to attack.

Then it was a heroic victory for the Romans!

Harrius rode back into Rome but the only way to ride under Triumphal Arch was to kill 5,000 men. Julius Caesar saluted Harrius the Mighty for this heroic victory. He said, "thank you for saving Rome."

Then Julius Caesar gave Harrius the Mighty the time traveler helmet. Julius Caesar invented the time traveler helmet. He told Harrius the Mighty, "this is a time traveler helmet. Go forward in time, look up some things about legions. Look up some machines besides our flame throwers, ballistas, and onagers. Find out how to build them and what we need. Go get Samus the Conqueror and tell him you're going to go to the future and to hold your hand. Tell him what buttons to push. Harrius the Mighty is going to wear it and Samus the Conqueror will hold his hand."

They got ready and heard a whirring sound then a blasting off sound and in five seconds they landed at the _____ house.

Harrius the Mighty knocked at the door. I answered it and said, "hi Harrius the Mighty and Samus the Conqueror." Harrius the Mighty asked me, "can Sam and I look up some machines, not ballistas, flame throwers, or onagers and find out how to build them?"

I said, "I know how to tell you how to build them. How about you go to our military and you can get the pieces there also. I have a place traveler helmet that takes you places like your time traveler helmet does, except it goes to places in the modern time."

Samus went to the military with Sam and Harrius the Mightly stayed and played Nintendo 64 with me. Then we read Roman books. The reading was for fun.

Sam and Samus the Conqueror came back and told Harrius the Mighty how to build machines. Harrius and Samus have the list of what they need and what they are called. They are tanks, Long-Bow Apaches, and F15 Eagles and F16 Eagles. Those are jets, not eagles.

Harrius the Mighty put the helmet back on. They hld hands and pushed the buttons when they were at the back door. They traded the place traveling helmet for the time traveler helmet and went back to Rome.

Harrius the Mighty and Samus the Conqueror told Julius Caesar what they found. He was happy. They used the modern machines to win every battle. Harrius the Mighty went under the Triumphal Arch and got a huge empire.

The End.

Spring Fever?

I know we all have colds, but not one of us has an actual fever. But it seems like we aren't getting anything done. Well, I take that back. We're getting a lot of things "done," we're just not having any fun doing any of it. In the last week it's been harder and harder to get Harry to "just sit down and do his work!" Sam is thrilled that I'm including him with letter pages to write and numbers to add, Annika is also happy to have some coloring books to color and paper to cut. Emma is happy being held and drolling all over me. But Harry isn't happy.

And I totally understand that. He is a little clone of me in many ways. So much so that sometimes it's scary! I think that right now he's bored. And, honestly, so am I. We go from doing a couple of pages of math to a lesson in his grammar book to a spelling test (which he loves now, go figure) to reading something. It's a lot of going from this to this to this with no connections made at all. I have an idea of how to solve that for next year with different materials, but for now what do I do? It's important what we're working on and I need him to learn spelling and math and grammar along with history and science. And all of those other things that are important.

I think we are going to get more books out for read-alouds. I'll look through them for interesting words and interesting things we can learn more about. We might switch math for a while to another book that's interesting by virtue of the fact that we don't use them all of the time. For science we'll go outside more. We need more play in our day I think. So in general we'll go outside more. That alone can cure most ills. I'm going to listen to my feelings more when I start thinking that we need to do less and be more. Yep, that's a start.

But for today, here's what we worked on:
math--review page
spelling--he got one wrong so he wrote it three times in his spelling notebook
grammar--telling the story of the three little kittens and him telling it back to me
50 Famous Stories--George Washington and his Hatchet
The Winter's Tale--they just love Shakespeare!
We looked up Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth to talk about how far apart they were (are)
There is something else that I can't think of now, another read-aloud. hmmm. Nope,not coming to me. Maybe later

The thing with Harry is that if I left him alone he probably would learn everything he needs/wants to know. I just don't trust that well enough. But I need to find a way to channel that a little better. Hmm. Lots to think about.

Tuesday

Tonight I have a swimming class at the local college, so everything gets compressed. It all has to be done by about 4--any cleaning, lessons, dinner prep. Otherwise you get a very cranky, somewhat frantic mom trying to leave. But it's worth it--so worth it to go swimming for two hours twice a week. I love it so far. It's hard, but fun.

Anyway, this is what we've done:

Some outside stuff this morning
Harry worked on his math lesson.
A grammar lesson, complete with copywork. We talked about the difference between sit and set.
We read a section of SOTW and answered some review questions. The PBS Nova site has a cool thing to create an aqueduct. That was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we'll make one out of clay (I think).
I still need to do some read-alouds. We went to the library this morning for some books, so while the pizza dough rises next, I'll read to the kids.

That's about it I guess. Pretty typical for a Tuesday seeing that we're out for most of it.

It must be Monday

Today we:

learned some new hand songs--I'm trying to include Annika more than I have been
had scissors practice with Sam and Annika using some cutting pages from Wondertime.com
(Sam gets very upset when he can't do it perfectly the first time)
began lesson 11 in MUS
began lesson 3 in Spelling Workout (which I hate--too much busywork)
read about the Roman gods and worked on the Ancient Rome history pocket
read part of the Armadillo story in Just So Stories
Began The Winter's Tale in our Shakespeare for Children book
Drew five or six new Roman maps
Colored several coloring pages
Ate lunch and snack

I guess that's it. It just seems like more while you are doing it.

Bad Days and Unschooling

Usually I write only about the fun things we do--the good days when everything comes up sunshine and roses. Honestly, though, most of my days are pretty good. Maybe sometimes just sunshine, but no roses, but still that's not bad.

Occasionally we have our days when it rains. And it rains hard. Harry didn't get enough sleep last night, Sam had speech early this morning, Annika's world is destroyed because I wouldn't let her eat all of the lotion in the house. And Emma, well, she's still pretty perfect, sleeping away in her crib looking angelic. (A whole other problem--she's sleeping too much, maybe she's sick.) I didn't sleep well last night because I did something to my right shoulder and now it hurts continually with little spikes of extreme pain. And it is literally raining today. Yeah, not too much sunshine today.

The other thing complicating all of this is that it's Thursday. I actually count on Thursdays to "catch up" from the week. Monday and Thursday are the only two days we don't have a bunch of stuff through the day. So, I use those two days as heavy academic days--there's a list of work to accomplish, and doggoneit, we're going to accomplish it.

So, what do I have with all of these moods and other things happening? A really grumpy family. (Except Sam, surprisingly he's my most even-tempered kid on bad days.) And no one wanting to do this list of work I have planned. Today I decided to have an early quiet time. Since I know that everyone is actually pretty tired, I fed them a pretty good snack at 11 and sent them to separate rooms to read, sleep, or play, their choice, as long as they stay there and are quiet. And I made cookies. Big ones, with lemon in them.

This afternoon, when I get them from quiet time, we'll meet at the kitchen table for some cookies and milk. We'll do some "real work" like spelling and grammar, and we'll read poems, stories, and make a Roman fasces.

I'm hoping that will dispel some of the clouds and bring out the rainbows and roses.

I'm a believer!

I've never been a fan of the form of homeschooling called "unschooling." Child-directed learning seems nice when it comes to figuring out how many legos they need to build a castle, but not so much when it comes to math or reading. (Even though it could be argued that the lego example actually is math.)

It all seems too random--hoping that the child wants to learn what they need to know for the future. Also too easy on my part, no need for planning or organizing when you follow the kids' interest.

But I've been watching my kids in the past week or so learning when I haven't "assigned" much at all. They have played with their legos a lot. They've started to build bigger and more structural things. They have used every blank piece of paper in the house to draw robots. Their robots are amazingly complex creatures with names and histories. Of course the robots all have enemies they fight too. I've watched Harry read every book I checked out of the library the other day, learning even more about Ancient Rome. All of these have been because they were interested in what they are doing and they've been learning from each of these experiences. Oh, this morning Harry learned on his own about negative numbers when he was subtracting stuff on a calculator.

Then I started thinking about colors. Way back when I sat Harry down and told him I was going to teach him the names of the colors. So we looked at books, we made his own little booklet, we had "red" day and "blue" day and even colored our food to match. And still after all of that he continuously mixed up red and green. It drove me nuts--he should know the colors by the time we finished our little unit. I worried that Harry was color blind. Finally I just gave up. And you know what, somehow along the way, he learned all of his colors. I did similar stuff with Sam, but I also just trusted that he would figure out his colors. Annika, well, she's on her own. And you guessed it, she knows her colors. Already.

She also just woke up from her nap, so I'm going to post this and finish my thoughts later.

Harry's Narrations

March 11, 2008

Napoleon:

He was a general of the French Army. The French was at war with almost all the countries around it. Napoleon wanted to get to Italy but first they had to cross the Alps. He sent some men to see if it was possible. Most of them shook their heads. But one said "maybe." Napoleon said, "stop" and led his troops into Italy in four days.

Sword of Damocles:

There was a king who was a tyrant. His name was Damocles. He was so dread of the thought that someone would take his life. Then one day his friend came to him and said, "how happy you should be for all the riches that you have. If I could have your riches and pleasures for one day, I would be happy." Damocles said "okay, you shall have them." So the next day came and he was treated with all the pleasures and riches for one day. The next day the servants treated him like he was their master and gave him food and meat. The he looked at the ceiling and saw a sharp sword hanging by one horse hair could fall at any second. Then Damocles never wanted to trade places with the king for not even a second.

The Really Good Stuff

Well, we're kind of on Spring Break here in the Wonder House. As much as we can be. But I brought everyone together this morning to read and cut out and create. We've
been doing a lot of pompom crafts lately--making caterpillars and chicks and ducks. All very cute. So today we tried our hand at coffee-filter butterflies. I've wanted to make these for a while, but could never bring myself to buy the filters. I sucked it up though and did it. And no one saw me and asked why I was buying the filters. It's like no one cared that I bought them. Shocking--no one but me cared! But I digress...

We of course didn't start our day off with the butterflies. Oh no. First we did the important things like try to figure out how to write big numbers using Roman Numerals and doing spelling crossword puzzles (hey, it's Spring Break!).

Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing! We started Rome! Harry was so excited. We read the chapter from Story of the World about the founding of Rome and then he told the whole thing back to me. He knows his stuff.



I set the table up during Quiet Time:
Cupcakes in the middle, the craft stuff on one side, stickers on the other, and books to read in the front. We read Sun Bread , Toestomper and the Caterpillars, and Spring Acrostics while eating the cupcakes. (By the way, they were cupcakes with a lollipop in the middle. I am now the coolest Mom ever!)



Then I told the boys what acrostics are and we brainstormed for a few minutes about Spring things that they could possibly write their own with. Harry settled on Cows. His poem reads:
Chewing grass
On the hillside
When they have their calves
Spring is here.

Acrostics turned out to be a bit limiting for Sam who wrote a haiku instead:
Caterpillars sit
in the sunshine. The eat on
a branch. Soon they spin.

After that Annika woke up, demolished her cupcake and we made the butterflies.

I'm going to say now, this is why I homeschool. Not every day is a party--most days aren't and there are a few when I think I just don't want to anymore. But thankfully I'm given days when we have cupcakes, write poems, and read stories. I can't imagine missing that. This is all stuff that could be done after school--but it wouldn't. I know myself too well. I homeschool because I'm able to be the Mom I want to be and because I can't do it all. I can't send the kids to school, pick them up, deal with homework and after-school activities and still read the stories, do the projects, and play with the kids. I've tried and it didn't work.

This post is written for the days I just don't think I can do it any more.

A Trip Around the US

and we aren't stopping to see any trees growing in the middle of the freeway!

Anyway, I've decided to do a quick study of the states with the boys (and Annika if she wants).

These are the supplies:
State coloring pages from Crayola (copy for both boys)
A map of the US to color
A map of the US to hang on the wall
Books about the states, such as this one G is for Golden

Binders and neat paper (always important for me)

The Plan:
Break the country up into regions and study one region at a time, paying closer attention to California. Cover one region of about 5-6 states per week. This is meant to be a survey to get to know where the states are, some of their attributes and their capitols. We aren't spending time on the history or anything like that because we'll cover that later.

How it Worked Today:
Things went pretty well. I read G is for Golden to the boys while they did the coloring page. They listened and were especially interested in Yosemite and the Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco. We also made plans (with ourselves) to go visit a Mission, since there are two within about 30 minutes from here. We then labeled California on our wall map along with Sacramento. And voila, we were finished!

Next week we'll do Oregon and Washington and that'll be it for the Pacific states. I'm not sure if we'll go straight from East to West or bounce around a little. I think they'd like to do Maryland and the East next, so that's where we'll head off to.

Busy Little Beavers

Over the fall I decided that we were way too busy and that we needed to quit some of our activities. It was a good decision for the time--we were selling the house, I was hugely pregnant, life was crazy.

While life is still crazy, I'm ready to add some outside activities back in. So in no particular order, here is what we do during the week: (I won't tell you which day actually has which thing in case of crazy people)

Day 1
Speech at 7:55 am (Sam)
Speech at 9 am (Annika
Standing playdate with friends 1:45 pm (one week they come here, then we trade)

Day 2
Classes from 9-12 and 1:15-2:15 (Harry)
Park playdate

Day 3
Gym class at 11:30 (Harry and soon-to-be Sam)
Archery at 1:30 (Harry)

Day 4
Speech at 7:55

Day 5
Home all day!

It's crazy and taking a bit to get used to, but so far it's working. Harry absolutely loves the archery and tolerates the gym class. He really likes his classes, although when another Mom asked me what classes he was in and I told her, math, art, science, and reading, she then asked me what I teach him at home.

I told her that I teach him everything. Because I do. The classes he takes are for enrichment and so he can hang out with his friends. I don't expect them to replace me. It was really kind of a rude question, at least the way she asked it.

Harry really wants to take piano, so I'm looking for a keyboard for him to practice on. One I find that, we'll work that in too. I'd also like to take Annika to a storytime at one of the libraries nearby, but I've yet to find one that works with our schedule. I hate to use up one of our "free" days, but I know she'd love it. So maybe that will come soon. Sam doesn't know this yet, but he's going to join in on the gym class starting in May. It's track and field then, so I think I can lure him into it by telling him that we need to show the other kids how fast he is!

Monday

A guy from our builder was coming over at 8:30 this morning to look at a couple of issues we're having, so our morning got off to a chaotic start--not the best when you actually want to accomplish something.

So after showing him the issues, he went off to solve them. I went off to educate the little ones. We started off with history. I got Evan-Moor Ancient History History Pockets the other day for Harry and Sam. They looked like fun and something easy to reinforce their learning. We cut, pasted, and colored the first batch today on "What is History." Although I figure if they don't know by now, they aren't going to. After all of the cutting and pasting, things had to dry. So we moved onto...

Reading. We read a story from James Herriot's Treasury for Children. I can't think of what it's called right now, but both Harry and Sam enjoyed it. I tried that book with Harry last year about this time and he hated the stories in it. He just couldn't relate to them at all. And while I'm sure he still isn't a veterinarian in rural England at the turn of the 20th century, he is at least willing to listen to the essays. While they listened all three worked on lacing cards. Annika interrupting every few seconds to shriek "mine" when the boys went near one she might've wanted to have at some point in her life. I decided it might be better if we did some actual...

Math so she could have the cards to herself. Harry and I sat down to learn regrouping. This is where all of the practice adding from right to left comes in. I explained to him what needed to happen, how, and why and we worked on a couple of problems together. I then moved away to talk to Sam while he finished the page. And we had fun with...

Grammar. Lesson 65 in First Language Lessons is way fun. Just so you know. It seemed like time to go outside and play, so that's what we did. But I'm mean so I brought them in to work on some...

Spelling. But I'm not that mean, because we did it in a cool way. It was review from last week because the concepts just didn't sink in too well, so we got out the dictionary and looked for all of the words that started with "wh." There are a bunch. I wrote them on a big piece of paper so we could see them all week. We read some more. Annika shrieked some more. Sam made yet more Roman Maps. If it weren't for recycling, I'd feel really bad about the amount of paper he uses for his maps.

Now it's 2:22 and I'm hanging out with the littlest one (no not the turtle), completing our March plans, and listening to Harry read every book I checked out of the library the other day. I'm not sure if I should hide the books I check out for future use or just let him read them early. Ahhh, if that's my biggest problem...

Today

We started with the Book of Mormon, sang 5 Little Monkeys and read a bunch of poems from Animal Crackers. That has to be one of the best books for quick poems that appeal to kids. They aren't sickly sweet (although they are sweet) and they aren't about how they hate their brothers. I just really like the book.

Harry had a spelling "test," which really is a spelling test. He writes the words from his lesson this week and if he gets any wrong, he writes them in the little spelling glossary section of his book. Today he got three wrong, which means that instead of moving on to a new lesson next week, we'll go over the concepts from this one again.

He also took a math test, which he aced. Skip counting is just plain fun. Oh yeah, we also did a quick grammar review in the form of "Simon Says." The kids just stand up and I'll say a word. If it is a verb, they do that, if it is something else they stand there and stare at me. Actually, Harry identifies the part of speech it is.

In between all of this learning and reviewing, Sam and Annika were making me delicacies with the new kitchen we got the other day.

I also read to Harry from 50 Famous Stories--it was about a rock in the North Sea. We looked up the North Sea and he narrated the passage. I'll post it later if I can.

Over lunch and snack we read Archimedes Takes a Bath. We haven't finished it yet, but so far everyone loves it.At some point we took out William Shakespeare and the Globe by Aliki and read a little about Shakespeare's life. I thought I'd impress the boys by telling them that I have been to his house. They just looked at me, blinking, "you've been to someone's house, yay." They didn't say that, but I know that's what they were thinking.

After lunch they went out to play where Annika go filthy and had to have a bath, so we had an impromptu bathtime for the kids. Harry also amused himself by finding all of the contractions in a passage. Hey, it works for him.

Now it's quiet time--the boys are acting out invasions and wars in the loft and the little girls are asleep (I love saying that). We'll go out later on--to the library and Kinko's or Staples, but for now, we're all tucked in nice and cozy at home.

The Aftermath

It looks like a volcano and an earthquake hit our kitchen!


A close up of Harry's: (The little guy is saying, "run away!")


Here's Sam's: (I made the one in the background)


Annika was busy too:

The Upcoming Week

We have a busy week this week--full of friends, family, doctor's appointments, classes, and other fun. So I need to be especially organized to get everything accomplished that I need and want to.

Here's what's happening:
Monday: Sea World in the afternoon with Adam
Tuesday: Speech all morning and Harry's friend from preschool is coming over in the afternoon
Wednesday: Harry has classes all day
Thursday: Speech first thing in the morning and another friend coming in the afternoon
Friday: Emma has a doctor's appointment at 11. (side note, no more appointments at 11, it just doesn't work for us!)

Things I need/want to accomplish this week:
Math: Lesson 6.
Spellng: Review Lesson 32. Only 4 more in this book.
Grammar: A lesson every day. Action verbs are a lot of fun around here!

History: Athens and Sparta. We're backing off a bit, not abandoning it all together. I think we'll do the "book work" for now and save the project time for science. Speaking of which...
Science: Earthquakes and Volcanoes. We'll build a pretend seismograph and a paper volcano. I have absolutely no desire to do the baking soda version right now. Maybe when we finish our earth science studies, but not now.

Season notebooks: More about winter. Somewhere I have a list of what I wanted to put in their notebooks. I'll find it and do it. Then I can return all of the winter books to the library and check out the spring ones.

Poetry, art, music. Please.

President's Day is tomorrow--we'll continue to read George Washington. At this rte we might finish it by President's Day 2009!

Various other readings from the Ambleside list.

That's all. I think a week should about do it. I'll let you know how it turns out in the end!

I never expected this

Harry has been interested in the military and weaponry since he was very small--it happens when you idolize your Uncle who is a Marine. He's always checked out library books about the military and that's been fine. We made the decision to channel that interest into history--specifically, Roman history. So for the last couple of months, he and Sam have "been" Romans. Again, that's fine.

For a while it was fine at least. We thought it was fun and interesting to see both Harry and Sam so involved with something. But, Harry is slightly obsessive, which means that he will only want to know about or do one thing at a time. He doesn't want to do his school work because he only wants to study history. He tries to make deals with me, "I will only do this math if we do history first." While one of the nice things about homeschooling is that he can follow an interest for a while. But he's not following an interest anymore--it's become his life!

I'm making the conscious decision to put history on the back burner for a while. We'll still study and find out information, but I won't be checking a ton of books out of the library for further study. I will try to steer him to other books when he has free-reading time. We are going to get back into our nature walks a bit more and finally finish the "winter" portion of our seasons notebook. We will study history a bit, it just won't be the focus. We are also going to put the playmobil away for a while--the Romans and the castle guys. We are pulling out the legos and the trains and building huge train tracks that stretch between the rooms.

My hope is that he'll realize that there is a lot of information out there and not all of it has to do with war and fighting. I'm sure he'll get obsessed with something else soon enough and I'll be back here trying to figure out what to do again!

Harry's Book Reviews

Life in a Medieval Castle, by Jane Shuter

It didn't give that much information about knights. It had a lot of information about how people lived in castles. If you like castles, you should read it.

Usborne Internet-Linked First Encyclopedia of History

I read the parts about Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Medieval Castles. There is a part about the first Olympic Games that's interesting. The parts I read were good because they gave a lot of information. But it doesn't give all of the information you want, so you should look somewhere else for more.

Eyewitness Books: Castle by Christopher Gravett

It had a whole bunch of information about castles and more information about knights than Life in a Medieval Castle. I liked the information and it has pictures about the things they were talking about in it. If they were talking about knights, they would show a knight.

Usborne Book of Castles, by Lesley Sims

It has chapters about different topics, so one chapter is called "war" and it shows what knights would do in a war. There is a lot more information in it than the Eyewitness Book of Castles. They both have the same kind of pictures though. If you were going to check one of them out of the library, you should get this one. (He's taking a quick reading break.)

Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children

It has a whole bunch of Greek myths. There is one called "The Gift of Fire' and the chief god Zeus let the people live on earth but he didn't let them have fire. So the god Prometheus stole a piece of burning charcoal from Zeus' palace. Zeus could smell the food that the people were having and he knew that Prometheus had stolen charcoal from his palace. He chained Prometheus to a mountain side and ever day an eagle tore out his liver and every night a new one grew back. He had to sit there for hundreds of years until the god Zeus forgave him.

There are lots of good drawings in this book too.

The Trojan Horse, by Warwick Hutton

The Greeks won the Trojan War by building the Trojan Horse. It's a big wooden horse that the Greeks made and the goddess Athena told Odysseus to write her name in the side. Then the Greek ships left and the Trojans thought they had won the war and they brought the Trojan horse in the city. Then they feasted and danced until they got tired and went back to their houses. When they were all tired, Odysseus and the other Greeks opened the door to the city so the other ones could get in. Then they stormed through the city and won the battle.

How to Be a Medieval Knight, by Fiona MacDonald

It has a lot of information about knights--more than any other of the castle books. It tells how the knights fought and what they used for their weapons and how they lived and practiced and became knights. There are questions in the back to answer. They are about what knights did and what to do if you were under siege. The answers are on the last page on the bottom right corner.

If you were interested in knights, this would be a good book to read.

There are other ones like this on being a Roman Soldier and a Samurai Warrior. And an Aztec Warrior.

Thursday

I know, catchy title, ehh?

Today was broken up because one of the builders' people had to come in and fix some things. It's kind of nice to point and say, "fix this" and they do. Anyway, it was kind of a bland day today, just us hanging out and skipping speech. (We slept in.)

We started off with math. Two digit addition is really proving hard for Harry. Usually he can finish a lesson in a week and move on, but we are going to spend at least another week on it. He's having a hard time putting numbers into the right places and going from right to left in his adding. I don't know how to help him really except have him work on it a bunch. He needs to get this cemented in his mind so that when we get to carrying, he isn't even more confused.

Harry and Sam then played Romans for a while so I could talk to the builder. Annika followed me around watching to make sure he didn't touch her stuff! Emma slept. W read something after that, but I have no idea what.

Spelling came next. It's interesting that in both spelling and math we are hitting things that challenge Harry. We are, in all honesty, not used to that. Reading came easily to him as have most of the concepts that we've covered so far. We worked through his spelling issues today, but I'll have to review them tomorrow. I might give him a real-life, actual spelling test. He'll love it. He loves anything that we can put a grade on!

I think we took a break for lunch and quiet time after that. It's amazing how few things can really take up a morning. But that's okay. While everyone but Harry, and including me, took a nap this afternoon, Harry read all of the books I checked out of the library. Really. They were mostly short books about Greece and Rome (I know, big surprise) and he was bored. There was history for the day!

Mom and Dad sent the boys a train and a car to make out of plaster of Paris, so we did that after a snack. Then we read more from Story of the World. I love SOTW. Really, really love it. Sometime, when there isn't a baby lying on my chest, I'll tell you why. This is on the Persian Empire, so Harry did the map work from the Activity Guide. Finally, I capped off our learning day by reading The Trojan Horse to Sam. He sat on my lap and everything for it.

Oh, yeah, I know what I read earlier, a story about the tasks of Heracles.

I've know got to go tuck little people in, see you tomorrow.

About the Playmobil

The first picture, above Harry's reading is named Harrius the Mighty. The one above Sam's reading list is a little more complicated: Sam William the Conqueror Volcano Slider. Apparently Volcano Slider is his middle name.

Snow!

Jason went back to work this morning, so we got right down to our lessons. First up, as usual, Math. Lesson 4 in Beta--Commutative Squares and Estimating. I honestly never though Harry would have so much fun doing his math work. MUS is working well for him, but math is a lot of drill, which he has never been fond of. But this lesson was fun--so fun in fact, that he asked to do another page of the lesson. Commutative Squares are a little like magic, you add the squares together and they all work out. It was pretty fun to watch him get so excited.

We took a break from all of that fun to have a snack. During snacktime I read the kids all three books about winter. We are doing a unit on winter to add to our seasons notebooks. We read The Mitten by Jan Brett and two others that I can't think of right now. After that I printed out an activity to go with the book for Sam and Annika while I did Grammar with Harry. Not quite as much fun as Math, but close. We did decide that the Pronouns would have beaten the Patriots yesterday though. There are no end to pronoun jokes around here.

After another short break for something else, oh yeah, feeding Emma, we headed back to work on Spelling. Spelling is probably the most truly boring subject we do so far. He did the review and we moved on with our lives.

I'm still trying to convince Harry that the Greeks were important to the Romans, so we shouldn't skip them. To that end, I read our passages from Story of the World as if they are the most exciting things ever! It's hilarious to hear me, but it works. The other thing that works is to point out the things that the Greeks did before the Romans. Today we read an entire chapter on Greece and looked it up in our history encyclopedia.

I need to go help the kids, so I'll have to finish later.

Later never came. But I wanted to talk about snow. We read a bunch of books about winter and spent a good two hours cutting out snowflakes. It was really fun. Harry went from not being sure what to do, to being able to make beautiful snowflakes. Sam decided that making snowflakes wasn't for him, so he just folded and cut paper into interesting shapes. Our day culminated in a snowstorm!

A good, well, decent, day

Jason went to work for a while today. Cue screaming--children of course. Moms don't scream.* They just eat every brownie in the pan. We survived and even got some things done this morning. I think.

Harry worked on his math some more. He did another three pages without me even sitting on him to get them done. Monday we will start with new material, so we'll cut it down to one or two pages--he'll be very relieved.

While he worked on his math, Sam did some pages in his phonics work book. Sam loves workbooks--he feels very accomplished to say "I did 5 pages today!" And he usually has done five pages. I don't push him, if he wants to work on them great, if not, great. Usually he does a few pages, then goes to play for a while and does that a few times during our lesson time.

Today I put Annika on my lap while the boys were working and read to her from a nursery rhyme book we have. She loved the nursery rhymes. It was so cute. Her favorite was "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater." She's been coming to me and asking me to say it all day long. And I can't just say it once, if I would she'd have me saying it all day non-stop.

Back to our day. After math we had a snack (I know, hard life, right, but it was 10:30 and the little people were hungry, all of them). And a girl from up the street came to see if Harry could play. I wanted to say no, but we just moved here, there are only a few kids on the block, and they all go back to school Monday, so this was the last time during our school hours that they would do this. Of course, if I had realized that she would stay and stay and stay at our house until almost 1, I would have said no. (And yes, it's my fault she stayed, I was the one who invited her to lunch, so no more complaining.)

After she finally left, Harry finished a spelling lesson. It was on the long-vowel A. Yep, we're doing exciting stuff here. Oh yeah, I meant to say that during snacks, I read the kids a story about George Washington, the farmer. Yes, he was our First President, I know, but this one focused on farming. We also discussed crop rotation. Different than crop circles. And as long as I'm putting every little thing we did in this post, I read them two chapters of the Mischievous Martens at breakfast today.

Spelling was the end of our formal lesson time today. Harry also read a bunch of books on armor, his Bionicle Encyclopedia, built several pyramids, and talked with me about the Greeks and Romans. He wants to learn Latin now, so he can be true Roman. Oh my. What have we started?

*We don't scream much, and usually not when the children are around. Usually. It doesn't mean that it's wrong or never happens. But eating brownies is usually preferable. Although sometimes you have to scream and eat brownies. It happens.

"Tomorrow is another day"

She said!

After much weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, phone calls, baby feeds, big kid snacks, and whatever else they could come up with...

we finished math--3 pages in MUS Beta, a lesson in Spelling Workout, and the beginnings of a great big timeline. Now the kids are outside playing in the mud and loving it.
The amount of work we've accomplished today doesn't seem like a lot, but it is. We spent about an hour reviewing our history while creating the timeline. Three pages is a lot of math, even if it is review, and the spelling lesson was kind of a unit test on everything we've done so far.

We still have grammar to go for the day, so we'll do that during quiet time. Ahh, sweet quiet time. How I love you!

Up for a Challenge?

Try teaching a seven-year-old, well, anything, while your five-year-old is singing about barbarian tigers (!), your 2-year-old is alternating between playing with her very loud farm and poking her baby sister in the head. And just for kicks, your husband is putting up blinds just two feet away.

Schools get snow delays, I'm calling a Sibling Delay.

A New Year

Thankfully we have moved and the new baby is here. So our BIG things are over and finished with. Now it's just a matter of unpacking the 43,857 boxes that we brought from the old house and finding a spot for everything. Yeah, that's all.

Anyway, we had to start back to our regularly scheduled learning days at sometime and I decided that we'd start today. If I had decided to wait until everything was perfect...well, I should just send Harry back to school. And that ain't gonna happen! Especially since the schools in our area don't start again until next week.

So today I made some scones for a treat (yes, it was a mix, I poured water and shaped the things), got out the books and called the boys down. I decided that teaching one kids wasn't enough and that Sam should start "kindergarten" now, so he joined us. He got out his workbooks and decided to do 3 or 4 pages in each and that was enough. It's interesting--Harry really doesn't like workbooks, but Sam looks through them lovingly wishing that he hadn't done the pages so he could do them again!

But really Sam's kindergarten is whatever he wants to do--it's prep for next year when he will need to work a bit harder. So, I concentrated on Harry. And he concentrated on eating his scone in the tiniest possible bits. Seriously, he'd look at it and decide which side to eat and pull off a tiny piece that wouldn't feel a mouse properly. While he did that, though, I had him working on his Math. He's finally made it into the MUS Beta book, hurray! Since today's work was review, he did three pages. And nearly died from the strain.

Fortunately, he survived after eating another crumb of scone. It gave him enough energy to finish a spelling lesson. Tomorrow is a review of what he's done in spelling so far, I can only hope he'll survive. And maybe spell jet properly.

Grammar came next, at which point I wished I had cut the scones into smaller pieces since it would take him approximately five hours to eat the thing at the rate he was going. But I was really proud of him for remembering "The Months" poem word for word. We haven't done any grammar/memory work for so many weeks, I was afraid it would be lost in the recesses of his memory. And it wasn't. Hooray. We discussed pronouns, and after defining them as words that no longer were considered amateurs, we figured out what they really were. There was a lot of giggling over the pro-nouns, and just as much over the examples of pronouns we figured out.

Before we began his lessons, Harry told me that if he couldn't do History first, he wasn't going to do anything at all. I know, he has developed quite the little attitude lately, which I squashed promptly. But that also goes to show you what he is interested in. I told him we'd get to History in due time, and to be patient. We did in fact get to history, and read about King Ashurbanipal and the Assyrian Empire. It was interesting if only because the Assyrians were great warriors and Harry could compare them to the Romans. But we spent a lot of time looking at their shields and siege towers and deciding if they really did influence the Romans and trying to figure out who would win in a battle--the Assyrians or the Romans.

So, we finished for the morning. The boys are off playing Romans--they got the entire Playmobil Romans set for Christmas this year. Their Romans always beat the Barbarians--of course.

PS: Sam wanted me to mention that they got almost the entire set for Christmas. They did not however, get the Commander's Tent. The set is now incomplete. Also Julius Caesar did not build the Colloseum, Trajan did.