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.

More Christmas Activities

Here are a couple of things I'm going to do with my kids and something I did with the Activity Day girls a couple of years ago.

Terra Cotta Trio just looks like fun. It also looks easy enough to keep the kids attention. I like the idea of them making their own little nativity. I have another one I'd like to make, but that will be for next year, when I have time and can breathe a little.

Marshmallow Snowmen. No link, but it's easy. Just use the marshmallows as paint brushes--the big ones for the snowmen and the little ones for snow. It's another quick and easy activity.

Now for the more involved activity:

This is the song: The Nativity Song.

Here are the pictures I used with the girls:

Some Christmas Activities

This is a list of some of the activities I would like to do with the kids. There is no way I'll do them all, but that's okay. With everything that is happening in our lives right now, I think keeping Christmas fairly simple is going to be the way to go.

Religious Activities (primarily):

A Week for the Christmas Story: We did this last year when the Friend came out and it was neat. I'd like to do the same thing again this year. It condenses the Christmas story into a week and even I won't forget, I hope!

Advent Calendar: What Is Christmas?

I like this advent calendar, I remember working on it a couple of years ago with Harry. There is another one I like better though.

Christmas Countdown

It's the one above. (Because I'm importing links, the spacing is a bit off, sorry.) Annika likes this one mostly because of the Baby Jesus and the animals. I'm hoping she won't like it enough to tear pieces off of it, but we'll see.

We've already made the next two things that also came from past issues of The Friend. I can't find them in the index right now, so here are the directions. Both of them are slightly harder than they look to be. I used a glue gun for both so the kids wouldn't have to wait for them to dry too much. Also because it was easier in the long run. I also used wooden craft spoons instead of erasers because I happened to have them on hand. I'm trying really hard not to run to Michaels each time I see a neat thing I want to make.

Okay, I found the link just now. It is: Christmas Workshop

That's it for now, I need to concentrate on Harry's party that is coming up, not on things further away. I also need to find a place for us to live come the 28th (Happy Birthday Ben!). So I'll post more another time.

More Christmas Books

We went back to the library this morning to get more Christmas related books. It's okay since we read 2-3 a day. They are short picture books, although I am looking for some longer ones for Harry.

Oh yeah, before I forget, if you have taken a look at my other Christmas Book List, I would not recommend Christmas Tapestry. Parts of it are really good, but the book introduces the Holocaust. I don't think my kids are ready to know about such a horrible event yet. It also talks about the stresses of being a "preacher's kid" which my kids can't relate to. So that one is off our shelf for this year.

On with the updates:
There was no snow on Christmas Eve / by Pam Muñoz Ryan ; illustrations by Dennis Nolan.

The Christmas bird / by Sallie Ketcham ; illustrated by Stacey Schuett.

Lucia and the light / Phyllis Root ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré.

One wintry night / Ruth Bell Graham ; illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson.

The Christmas cobwebs / Odds Bodkin ; illustrated by Terry Widener.

Sing Noel : Christmas carols / selected by Jane Yolen ; musical arrangements by Adam Stemple ; illus

A December to Remember?

With all of the house chaos and birthday chaos and baby chaos, school for us is going to be pared down a bit until after Christmas. That doesn't mean we won't do anything, but the style will change somewhat. For instance, you read my big list of books. That's about half of the books we'll be reading this season. The rest are at the library waiting for me to pick them up. That'll be, to an extent our reading "curriculum" for the month. We'll read other things, but that's what I'm focusing on.

For math, we'll continue as usual. Math is a skill that needs to be repeated often or the facts get lost. However, we won't just do book work. We'll double cookies, figure prices for gifts, and do some worksheets (gasp) that are Christmas themed.

Grammar and spelling will continue also. I don't want Harry to backslide because we're having too much fun!

On the other hand, we're adding in one Christmas project a day. That is a little tricky for me because I don't want to decorate the house just to put everything away in a few days, plus we don't really decorate until after Harry's birthday. But we'll muddle along. The projects are loosely broken into categories: cooking/baking, gifts, religious, fun. That doesn't mean they can't be more than one thing, but I'm trying to pull from each of these once a week.

For geography, we're doing a Christmas Around the World Theme. We're reading books that talk about Christmas in other places and maybe doing a project about it. I don't want to do too many projects, that get tiring and the amount of "stuff" gets overwhelming, but some are fine.

Gotta go, speech classes. I'll update some specifics later. If I get a chance!

Christmas Reading List

Here is our preliminary reading list for the season:

My Little House Christmas Crafts Book
A World of Holidays: Catherine Chanbers
The Baker's Dozen: Heather Forest
The Night Before Christmas: illustrated by Tasha Tudor
The Beautiful Christmas Tree: Charlotte Zolotow
Let's Celebrate Christmas: Peter and Connie Roop
The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: Gloria Houston
The Little Fir Tree: Margaret Wise Brown
A Christmas Celebration: Pamela Kennedy
An Early American Christmas: Tomie dePaola
The Legend of the Poinsettia: Tomie dePaola
The Christmas Camel: Nancy Winslow Parker
Hark: A Christmas Sampler: Jane Yolen
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree: Robert Barry
Christmas in Denmark (they didn't have one for Sweden, I figured it was close enough for now)
Cranberry Christmas: Devlin
On Christmas Eve: MW Brown
Christmas Tapestry: Patricia Polacco
Silver Packages: Cynthia Rylant
Joy to the World: Saviour Pirotta

This isn't an exhaustive list of everything we're reading this season, but it's a start. We have some that I haven't typed in also, because I can't find them. Unfortunately most of our books are already packed away ready to go. But I imagine I'll update this every few days, assuming I can find some more.

Oh, here are a couple more:

Who's that Knocking on Christmas Eve: Jan Brett
The Gingerbread Baby: Jan Brett

We have a bunch from Sweden by Astrid Lindgren, so when Annika isn't sleeping in the room they are in, I'll get them and type those in too.

Back to the Grindstone

Sort of. It's hard to call anything where your six-year-old says, "Yay, we're learning about Carthage now," a grindstone. That is a direct quote. Jason's been playing a game on the computer where the Romans pretty much defeat everyone under the sun and he's fighting Carthage right now. How's that for a "real life" application of history!

Jason went back to work today after taking last week off for Thanksgiving. There was much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth on Annika's part. She was most unhappy that Dada was leaving. I figured that we should get back to work too.

We started off the day with Happy Times in Noisy Village. We read a chapter about a sheep so the entire time Annika baaed like a sheep. It was a little distracting, but she's supposed to be working on her speech, so we didn't say too much.

We were then joined at the table by an entire army of Bionicles. After telling their commander that only one was allowed at the table at a time, they took turns sitting and watching Harry and Sam do their work. Annika's doll, perhaps wanting to keep her distance, stayed on Annika's lap! That's how we did Math (lesson 28--we're almost finished with the book!) and grammar. Grammar culminated with some copywork, which Harry is strangely compliant about. It makes me worry--have we turned a corner where he will be okay with writing from now on or is he going to regress into his "I don't want to write" mode? I try not to shake too much as I hand over the part he's to copy and just go with it, but it's harder than it might seem.

He played a while after that--actually they all did. I lured them back to the table with the promise of some clementines. As they ate the last three clementines, my mouth watered and I devised plans to steal one. Harry also did some spelling. Not very exciting, especially since he's just beginning the book. I'm trying to whip through it, but not let him miss anything. So we do a book lesson a day, but go over the rules all week.

Once he finished his clementine (no I didn't actually steal anyones) we read about the Phoenicians, glass blowing, and snail boiling. Apparently Tyre was an incredibly smelly place since that is where they made all of the purple dye for the ancient world. Boiling sea snails does nothing for your reputation as a vacation spot--it's too smelly! That's when the above comment about Carthage was made--as Harry asked if we could read another chapter of history. I actully said no. Normally I'd say yes and bask in the glory of raising a kid interested in the outside world, but today he's going to a friends for the afternoon and we needed to have lunch and some quiet time.

That's where we are right now. And despite the fact that I went to bed at 7:30 last night and work up at 7:15 the morning, I'm going to lie down before we need to get in the car.

I can't remember now

if it's Wed, Thurs, or Fri! I had a mini panic attack a while ago because I suddenly thought it was Friday and I had all of these things to do, RIGHT NOW before going to Bunko at 6:30. (Yes, I know it's lame that I play bunko, but it's something to do occasionally). Anyway, I realized it was Thursday and I was fine, but then somehow I decided it was Wednesday a little while later. One of the problems of homeschooling maybe? Although I don't think I want to blame my inability to follow a calendar on homeschooling. Pregnancy maybe, but not homeschooling.

So what did we do today? Again, we started put with Math. Harry did two pages. Moved onto 50 Famous Stories and read about William Tell. Harry drew a picture of WT shooting the apple off of his son's head that's pretty neat. We talked about what a tyrant is and isn't and had a nice little discussion from that. I think they went to play after that for a while.

I lured them back into the kitchen with the promise of snacks and we read a couple of Thanksgiving stories. I keep meaning to post our Thanksgiving readings, but I also keep forgetting to. Maybe soon I'll get it finished. Hopefully before Thanksgiving. Harry did some spelling words and then we read some pages from D'Aulaire's George Washington. I'm not entirely sure everything is totally accurate in these biographies, but I'm willing to overlook that for now. This isn't the only biography Harry or Sam will read on Washington--it's just an introduction. Anything that needs to be cleared up will be.

During quiet time he read more of Eragon. He is really into that book. A lot more than Harry Potter. I think it's more exciting to him--there are dragons and a quest instead of a kid going to school. I got him out of quiet time early to work on his science. We are still studying rocks and fossils. Today I got out the igneous and metamorphic rock kits. We looked at them and tried to decide the colors, texture, and a bunch of other things that have slipped my mind now. We also did a sink or float experiment. He told me if he thought the rock would sink or float and we tested it. It was a lot of fun--we had a great time together looking at these rocks and talking about them. Harry's observational skills are getting better and better.

At the end we made Edible Igneous Rocks. It's basically fudge. We boiled the ingredients and then cooled them until they were hard. The only problem is that they aren't getting hard--in fact, quite the opposite. They are as runny as soup. So much for that, but he was so excited and could really grasp what we were doing.

Ahhh, what will tomorrow bring?

Tuesday

Someday I'll think of clever post titles, but it won't be tonight. I'm going to bed right after this. Today Sam and Annika both had their speech lessons and we jumped Jason's car so he could go to work. A library run was scheduled after that, but I decided that today we really needed food more than books. Tomorrow, we'll see. We got home in time for lunch, which Annika decided to fix for herself. She opened up one of my yogurts and had eaten half of it by the time I realized. All this to explain why we didn't get much done.

What we did? Math and spelling. Harry did one page of MUS quickly and well. I decided to see if I could skip Harry ahead in his spelling book by testing him on the words in his list of the week. Oddly enough, he got most of them wrong. Even the ones I know he knows--like Mom. It was a very strange moment. So he worked a bit more in his spelling book, which at this moment I'm not sure I like and am planning on trying something different. I'll check him again on Friday. After that he did another of his timed math drill. I learned something the other day--cover up the timer. When he can see it, he gets distracted thinking about the time going by. All I have to do is cover it with a sticky note and he can sit down and just get to work. Amazing what a post-it can do!

Tomorrow I don't expect us to get a whole lot done either, he has his coop classes. But I plan on getting a bit more done. The other issue with this week is Sam's birthday party on Saturday that I need to finish getting ready for--so the time that I would have extra is being used for something else. That probably doesn't make much sense. Here it is in plain English. Usually if we don't finish our work in the morning, I push it off to quiet time and finish it then. But this week I really need to use that time to get ready for Sam's party--I can't just push that off at all. So things are a little tricky in that department.

Okay, this has taken me way too long to type since I'm tired. So I'm going to bed. Good night!

Monday again

So on Saturday Jason and Harry washed the car and listened to music. I went out a few hours later and the music was still on--the battery was completely run down! The point? We took Jason to work this morning.

That threw us off a little--it's always hard to get started when something unexpected comes up. Somehow though, we got things together and really worked today. First up was math. I cannot wait to be finished with the MUS Alpha book. I honestly think Harry's ready to move up now, but there isn't any harm in waiting just a little. He's on lesson 26 of 30, so just a little while longer--by Christmas certainly.

While Harry worked on his math, I drew him a picture of a volcano to demonstrate where different igneous rocks come from. I had planned on saving it for later, but since he saw me making it, I decided to let him work on that instead of spelling. He labeled where the rocks come from, made some inferences on which were the hottest and coolest and answered some questions about igneous rocks in general. Our rock study is going well and he's learning a lot.

He finally finished his Benjamin Franklin copywork--again without complaint, even though this was the longest section with the biggest words in it.

We began some spelling work this morning as well. We haven't done spelling before because I have this feeling that there is no real reason to start this early, but after some more study, Jason and I decided that it would be a good idea. So he had ten super-easy spelling words and he breezed right through it.

After that we worked a bit on our Thanksgiving Notebooks--talking about the Pilgrims and what they found when they finally made it to the New World. We are reading a fabulous book called N. C. Wyeth's Pilgrims that has amazing pictures and just enough text to make it challenging for both boys. They have to listen while I am reading and can't just wander off to do something else.

Since we were of a historical mind then we talked about Moses and the Israelites. I'm still having a difficult time considering that history--we read the Old Testament Stories version just a couple of weeks ago, so I'm thinking I'll skip the rest of this chapter and move on to the Phoenicians.

Now we are in quiet time. Ahhh, the silence. I savor it and dream of it. Even though I'm going to get Harry soon and see which of his igneous rocks sink and which float. Then we can move onto sedimentary tomorrow. Oh yeah, one of the reasons we did so much this morning is that we're trying out a new schedule and I told Harry that if we were able to finish what we needed to, we could go to Legoland this afternoon and see if they had anything for his Bionicle birthday Party. It's amazing what a little bribery will do for a six-year-old!

Thursday already?

I love Thursdays--we only have one speech appointment and then we get to spend the rest of the day at home. I use it to catch up on all of the things that didn't get finished through the week.

So, knowing that. Today Harry did a couple of pages in MUS. He wrote some copywork from Benjamin Franklin. We finished the book earlier in the week, but it's great to have Harry write without complaints. He just really liked the book and the sayings in it. He'll spend a couple more days finishing the work, but it really is an accomplishment for him.

Everyone needed a snack about then so while they at their yogurt, I read a couple of Aesop's Fables and King Alfred and the Beggar. Harry's understanding of the true meanings of things is growing by leaps and bounds. I'm trying to figure out what I want him to do with the morals of the stories, but aside from copying them down, I haven't come up with anything. And I know that forcing him to copy these won't make them stick, it'll backfire and he won't want to read them anymore.

We took some time to create autumn leaves out of markers, coffee filters, and watered down glue. That was a lot more time-consuming and messy than I thought it would be. But it turned out kind of cool. I'm just not sure it was worth the time and mess. I'm planning to leave a review for this craft on the crayola website.

They played Bionicle people for a while after that, had lunch, and we dove into our study of rocks. We got a kit that has a whole bunch of igneous rocks in it, so we looked at each one and tried to describe them. I made a chart and everything to fill out. Sam and Annika got into the action too. The most common phrase of this part: "No, Annika, don't eat the Mt. St. Helen's ash!"
Now it's quiet time, which is nice because I'm exhausted. We have a busy evening tonight, well, the kids and I do, Jason will be home resting. He had a longer night than I did yesterday. So I'm debating between a shower and a nap. And maybe getting some lunch. We'll see. Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure!

Narrations and Stories

Benjamin Franklin:

Benjamin's friend stuffed Ben's pocket with pennies. Benjamin ran to the toy store. He gave the owner all of his pennies for a whistle. Benjamin walked through the house while his family was eating dinner blowing his whistle.

His brothers and sisters teased him and called him a spendthrift. A spendthrift is someone who doesn't pay attention to what he is buying. Benjamin bought the whistle for four times what it was worth. After that he looked at how much something cost and he gave the person he was going to buy it from that amount. He also thought about how he would spend his money after that.

The Fox and the Grapes:

A fox went walking along and he spied some grapes. He really wanted them and he tried to get them. He couldn't so he said they were sour grapes and he quit. Then he just walked off.

Horatius and the Bridge:

The Most Interesting Part:
They put out his eye and he jumped into the river and they thought he was sunk. But he wasn't because he was the best swimmer in Rome.

The Fairy Forest, by Harry

The fairies use oranges for food. The peels make their beds. Big ones are for the Queen and King and small ones are for the servants and everyone else. If they are stuck together they use their fairy chainsaws to break them apart.

They also eat apples. Then they use the peels to make their pillows. They get their apples and drop them out of the tree. Then they get a big needle to put the peels in and they pick the grass with their fairy chainsaws. They put the grass in the apple peels and use the needles to make sure there aren't any holes.

Monday, Monday

So, I feel like today is a fresh start after a bad week last week. We're settling down to our lessons and such and things are planned, but not too planned. And here we go. (I'll update as we go along today.)

Friday Funday?

The fire danger has mostly passed for us and it was back to our normal days. More or less. I woke up at 3:30 this morning and didn't fall back asleep until 5:30. Those are an important two hours apparently in my world, so I'm a bit tired.

Anyway, this morning Harry did a timed math drill and got 66 correct in 5 minutes! That is the most he has ever gotten and I'm really proud of him. He just sat down and worked really hard for the entire five minutes. We're working on a goal of 100 correct in 3 minutes. This supplements the MUS work he does. He finished his lesson yesterday, so I'm waiting until Monday to introduce another one.

We also read another chapter of Children of Noisy Village and the children who live in my noisy house clamored for another. So I think later at snack time we'll do that. They are all really into it.

And we finished Midsummer! Yay! When I started this our, I was pretty nervous, not sure if Harry would follow it or understand everything, but he turned out to be really interested in the story and fascinated by the fairies. This morning he got out another version I had from the library and read that on his own. So now he really knows the story.

Still to do today: a chapter from Burgess Bird Book, writing practice, and a few pages of Benjamin Franklin. I'd better go get him from quiet time and get started!

Fire, what fire?

We don't need no stinkin' fire!

(A tribute to Sam--he memorized that and will spontaneously come out with it using whatever is nearby!)

Anyway, Jason is still home. There are still fires, but in my efforts to keep things normal, we did our normal stuff today. Of course between fielding phone calls from concerned family (thanks everyone, we're fine).

Harry managed to do his timed math drill without too much trouble. He also did some writing practice and cooler than all of this, we did an easy little experiment about water condensation. We just got a glass, filled it with ice and water and watched what happened. He also filled in his little experiment record about it.

During quiet time we read some more Benjamin Franklin and talked about some of his sayings. Then Harry had to write one of them for copywork.

That's it--it never looks like as much as it is.

Weird Day

The fires in San Diego County are all around us, and since there are 8, it's not too hard to be surrounded!

Jason's work was closed for the day, so he has been home, which is always nice, but throws off our studies a bit. I thought about just playing all day but decided that we needed to have as normal a day as possible.

So here's what we did, more or less. Read a chapter from Story of the World about Egypt's Middle Kingdom. Is it possible to be tired of Egypt? It seems as though most of what we study in history is new and totally interesting, but Egypt is cool for a while and then just is kind of done. Anyway, we read and did a map and looked it up in a couple of other books.

After that I pulled out Benjamin Franklin by the D'Aulaires. Harry has been very excited to read it so it was a big hit. We read a few pages but not too far, I want the book to last. Harry narrated the pages we read--I'll post it tomorrow.

He played for a while after that. Jason took Sam out to get batteries and Harry and I got back into the math. He did both a page in MUS and his timed drill. I need to make sure he does the drill every day, I can tell by his scores if he takes days off of it.

He also practiced his writing. And we read the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. After that we drew some wolves that actually look like fluffy turtles!

A True Adventure

I've been feeling lately as if our Family Learning Adventure is, well, lacking in adventure. So I've been looking for ways to remedy that. A hs group here in our area sent out an email that they were going to have a nature walk this morning in a place a little less than an hour away. It didn't take me long to scrap our learning plans for the morning/day, pack a picnic, and set off.

The first sign that this plan might go awry was the place where the nature walk was to be held. It wasn't in some gorgeous park with trees and good signage. It also wasn't really in a great neighborhood at all. But we were on an adventure so we persevered on, making sure to lock the car doors.

We were the first to arrive--only a bit nerve-wracking when we realized that we were in a not-great neighborhood and even the coordinator wasn't there. Still, we were up for an adventure. And we wandered around the preserve. It was billed as a native-plant preserve, so I pictured some cactus, sage, stuff like that. And it was there, kind of. There were very few signs to tell us what we were seeing and of the signs that were there, most were broken. Also, quite a few of the plants were dead.

Honestly, I was thinking, "I wasted my gas for this, I put three kids in the car to see a few half-dead plants which we can't even identify? And where is the coordinator? Was the whole thing a scam to get pregnant women and their children into a remote, not-very-nice place?"

But I sucked it up and adventured onward, trying to have a good attitude for the kids while looking around the whole time for escape routes. They, on the other hand, had a good time finding neat plants and rocks, sitting on the various benches and rating them for cleanliness. They also sat down on one of the clean benches and drew pictures of one of the things they had seen that they liked.

Even I was getting into the adventure. Until the dog came...But you can read about that below.

Lame

What kind of person sees that his large dog is terrorizing three small children while their very pregnant mom is trying to pick all three of them up so the dog doesn't jump on them, and then walk leisurely over to get the dog? And then not even put the dog back on the leash which is in said lame person's hand and allow the dog to run more through the park?

Sometimes I get REALLY annoyed with people.

Terrific Tuesday?

Today went quickly. It seems as though the days do that lately.

Harry started off in Math--he did a page in his MUS book, actually he did two. It's hard--he needs the practice on these simpler problems, but at the same time, he's kind of past it. I want to start him on the next level, but I don't know if he truly is ready or it's me pushing him.

Anyway, he did his math in record time. I had a little thing for Sam and Annika to do, gluing letters onto some paper, and Harry joined them once he was finished.

Ahh, and the bane of Harry's existence came next. He HATES copywork. Actually he hates any kind of writing. But the only way to get better at it is to do it, so...he had some copywork next. It dealt with the weather which is what we are working on for science. It took him less time to actually accomplish it than it did to whine about how much he didn't like it, a point I made sure to show him!

Since we got home from speech classes late, it was lunch time, and we read yet more of Midsummer. During quiet time he and I looked up the weather around the country and our area.

And the schooly part of our day came to a conclusion!

Monday, monday

I was all set to post and blogger was down, so here's the Monday wrap up.

We started out by reading more Midsummer. Not a whole lot, but enough to advance the story. Harry really thinks it's funny. I love it. While I was reading he painted a picture of the Fairy Forest in the story and when I was finished with our reading for the day, he told me all about it. I'll post his story in a little while when the kids aren't right here. Plus I have to go downstairs for it and I really don't want to again.

After Harry and Annika went outside to play for a few minutes while I got set up for our next thing. Which I suddenly don't remember. We read some Aesop's Fables, he narrated one. We also read Horatius at the Bridge from 50 Famous Stories Retold. He narrated that too.

Harry watched the next Math-U-See lesson on subtracting from 10 and did the page in his book for that. He also did his timed test for the day.

We picked up Sam from preschool and did some shopping. (Harry needed new church pants and a white shirt for Sunday). I ended up without a white shirt but with church pants and a couple of outfits for the new little girl that will be joining us soon. That was fun!

In the afternoon we did a neat craft that involved acrylic paints and a chrysanthemum. The boys made "Mum Prints." Annika painted herself with blue and purple kid paints. I'm not about to give her something that's going to stain.

That's about it. It was a pretty nice day.

I didn't realize

it had been quite so long.

Yikes. Well, in my defense, there has been learning happening here, I just haven't posted about it.

So without further ado, here's what we've done this morning:

Math--one page of his current lesson in MUS. I also decided that Harry really should know how to grip a pencil correctly, so we worked on that.

We read a bunch pages from Midsummer Night's Dream. The version we are reading is really interesting and fun, Harry keeps asking to read more. Sometimes I do, but most times I don't--I have to make sure he understands what is happening. (True story: Harry just saw me writing this and, I quote, said, "I wish we were reading Midsummer right now. I really like it. So, does Oberon think that Puck is funny? I don't, he plays mean tricks on people") I think he understands it pretty well!

I had them color and cut out a bunch of autumn shapes yesterday so we strung them onto a ribbon for a decoration. Today they had to match up some leaf stickers by shape and size so we could make it even prettier.

Play and snack time.

I got out the play dough and everyone joined in. We read a chapter from Story of the World about ancient China--farming, pictograms, and dynasties. We used play dough to make up our own pictograms and talked about how life was different back then. Harry and I used the SOTW activity book directions to begin making our "Ming Bowl." Once it dries, he'll paint it blue and white.

Lunch time and Child's History of the World. We read a chapter on the Egyptians. This led to another chapter also on the Egyptians and a discussion about if these people were alive at the same time as people in the Bible and Book of Mormon. I really need to get started on some kind of a Book of Centuries or time line. Things will make way more sense.

It's quiet time and Annika is asleep. Sam and I are going to play a game he got from speech (I'll have to write about that soon) and then I'll get both boys up to paint with acrylics. Not something I'm willing to do when Annika is around!

After that is an early dinner and soccer practice.

Thursday is our "day off," we only have Sam's speech class which ends at 8:25. Then we get to go home and do fun learning things. I love Thursdays!

The Day Before

Annika's 2nd Birthday!

I decided not to plan much school-type stuff on Thursdays. Harry will do math and copywork, but that's all that's on the schedule. Instead, it's our "day out." It's the only day that we don't have preschool or later speech appointments. So we go play.

Although, after saying that, today we are home. It's just too hot right now for me to have any desire to do anything. I know that we could head to the beach, but even the beach is too warm. Also with Annika's birthday tomorrow, I wanted to get some stuff done around the house--make her cake, clean, make some banners, clean. Stuff like that.

Today we did tomorrow's learning work. We read some of This Country of Ours, looked at pictures of the earth, inside and out, talked about the atmosphere, played a math game, and did some copywork. All-in-all, it took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. First grade at home is wonderful.

I have to say though, that part of why it's working so well is that I'm organized and I'm using a curriculum that I believe in. There are parts that I've changed--we are doing more organized science and I've cut out a book that doesn't work for us for religious reasons, but more or less we are following it. And it's wonderful. Harry is asking interesting questions, making connections between things, and in general learning a lot. I'm learning to be a little hands-off and let him make the connections and be responsible for his own learning.

We're Back!

I am continually amazed at how much Harry is getting from Story of the World. I know I wrote about the change in my last post, but I kind of wondered if he was just interested because he knew some of the story already. Today we read a little about Hammurabi and his law code, which I know none of my kids have any prior knowledge of. It was amazing. Harry was really into the story. Even though some of it was dry, he was still interested in it.

The best part is that he's asking questions--good questions about why and who. I asked him if he thought the examples of the laws were fair and he thought for a minute, said no, and then told me why. It was interesting to see his mind work. He's still so little and in his mind it is fair to pretty much do what you want, even if no one else thinks it it. I truly expect that to change in the next few months--the egocentrism that is. Hopefully not the thinking about things part.

We spent about an hour doing our academic-type stuff. He did some math; how come subtraction makes way more sense to him than addition? Then we read SOTW and did some of the sheets for this chapter. I really wanted to get some copywork/grammar done, but that will have to wait until later. We had a snack at 10 and read a bit about Henri Matisse, our painter of the month. Then we did a painting project of our own. I'll take pictures of the paintings later when they dry.

Now the kids are playing Monopoly together while Annika does her King Kong impression and walks over the board with her hands behind her back! I have to get a crown put on this afternoon, so we are picking up our babysitter after lunch.

In the Beginning...

We've gotten our books, I've begun to plan, and in my enthusiasm, couldn't ignore that copy of Story of the World just sitting on the table. We did some from it last year, but it seemed like drudgery. I ordered it again this year because I wanted it to work so badly and I'm pretty sure that it was only drudgery because I made it like that. I planned and planned and thought about how wonderful it would be to do the projects in the activity book, and then when they didn't go exactly like I thought they should, I got discouraged.

Wow, look at all of those "I"s in that sentence. See it was me, not the boys.

Anyway. I pulled it out and decided to start roughly where we left off last year (Ch. 6 if you're keeping score), and proceeded to tell the boys the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It went amazingly well! Probably partly because Harry has heard of all of these prophets before. He has some prior knowledge to hang the new information on. Whatever the reason though, both boys were really into the stories.

It did seem wierd to me to tell a Bible story out of a history text and have that be a lesson (and not in the way of "let this be a lesson to you, boys"). But I got over it when they both could discuss what I had read. As the culminating part of this lesson, I cut out robe shapes and the boys glued colors to them, making Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoats!

Starting Back

We did a little math on Monday. Just got everything put away from breakfast and grabbed the math book. It wasn't so bad--I gave Harry a couple of review pages to work on just to get him started. I think we'll try to do some review every day for a week or so and then get back into the new info.

It wasn't my intention to take such a long break, it kind of just happened and I think I need to get back into the swing of things kind of slowly.

20 July

Harry says he doesn't like picture books anymore--he's too old. Sure, little boy hanging on my knee engrossed in the pictures. Much too old.

Read Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytail to H&S. Mostly to Harry while Sam sat at the other side of the table drawing great white sharks. Annika also there--eating crayons. I'm aghast--not the crayons, you just don't do that to perfectly innocent crayolas. When I get the good crayons, I'm hiding them from her.

Looked up Picasso in another art book we have. Funny picture of him with bread hands--Harry was a bit disturbed by it. Went to the computer, but we'll have to finish in a while. Remember Usborne Quicklinks, Children's Book of Art, pages 44-45. All about Picasso.

Must get Annika dressed and get to the library before she is too tired and will fall asleep in the car. I need a nap today too!

under construction

Pardon me while I mess around a bit with this template. Hopefully I'll finish soon, before I have anything real to say!

A Morning Spent in Scotland

We are reading Little House in the Highlands by Melissa Wiley. It is historical fiction written about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Great Grandmother who grew up in Scotland. At first I thought it blasphemy to try to write novels about LIW's family, but I love the books. They are incredibly descriptive as far as life in Scotland at the end of the 18th century and just fun to read. Plus the boys really like them.

So this morning we had porridge and cream because that is what Martha had for breakfast every morning in her nursery with her brothers and sister. Harry pretended to be Martha's brother Robbie and Sam Duncan, another of her brothers. Annika got to be Martha, although I'm pretty sure Martha never dropped most of her porridge down her dress--maybe she did at almost two. While they ate their breakfasts I read a chapter that described the tenant farmers' cottages, so now I'm trying to find a picture of what one might have looked like. Not that easy, really.

I have this sneaking feeling that we will be incorporating more and more Scotland into our summer--mostly food, probably. But we'll do more than that as the little people in our home want to. It's just fun.

This morning

We're reading Pagoo--a really wonderful book about a hermit crab growing up in a tide pool. It's full of a lot of information about tide pools and the animals that live there. What's more is that the kids really like the book and it's sparking an interest in tide pools. Which, for where we live is pretty good.

This led to looking at other animals in tide pools, trying to figure out how the tides work (I knew it had something to do with the moon, just not exactly how), and inexplicably, looking up how fireworks work.

All in about 30 minutes. (this was actually yesterday morning)

Why Preschool?

The short answer--because Sam needs it.

He doesn't really know how to deal with people his own age, or around his own age. And nothing I was doing was solving this problem. Everyone his age that I know is already in preschool. I also wanted him to have a place where Harry isn't. Although, Harry did go to the same preschool and they all know Sam as "Harry's Little Brother." So there's a slight flaw in the system. Sam's teacher is new to us and didn't know Harry though.

All-in-all it's been a good thing for him, even after only two days. Sam tells me a lot about his day. Tonight he sat on my lap and ticked off the things he remembers from the day. He had snack, rode a bike, made his project. There were about five or six things that he told me about. His teacher said he didn't say much but he did talk a little. Which, frankly for me, was amazing.

I don't know if I truly underestimate Sam or if I just worry too much about him. I know he is incredibly smart and loving and funny and oh-so-stubborn. But I didn't think he'd take to preschool as well as he has. I thought he'd have a harder time relating with the other kids--instead tonight he told me that he played with a "nice boy in a red shirt!" I didn't think he'd talk for a while, if ever.

I am just so incredibly proud of Sam. He has worked so hard just to speak clearly and here he is off in the world by himself, proving me to be the overprotective mom that I am!

The Outside; inside and stuffed

Today we headed out to a local nature center to see what we could see. It was a taxidermists dream. Fortunately my kids all seem to be future taxidermists. They had all of the birds we've seen in our back yard, plus their nests and in some cases their eggs. There were also stuffed gulls, a Great Horned Owl and lots of other things that should normally be flying or creeping.

Along with all of the things the kids couldn't touch, there was plenty they could. Apparently when animals die, people bring them to the nature center. So there were bird wings, feathers, dead lizards (ewww) and all kinds of things to discover.

Since the nature center is by a lagoon, there is also a path partway around where you can see pretty much nothing! The reeds are so high it's a little like being in a corn maze. We were able to watch a little bird jumping around in some mud eating some "most delicious bugs. Yum, yum." That was fun. And the kids saw a couple of ducks as we were driving out.

We had a good, low-key time. The kids did like seeing all of the animals and feeling what they could, but they also had a lot of fun squeezing all of the stuffed birds so they could hear the sounds they make. This doesn't really explain it. Maybe this will help: http://www.seattleaudubon.org/natureshop.cfm?catID=366 . They were toys, not the real birds--we got a mourning dove because they were the first birds we identified when we got the feeder.

This post is getting long. It was just a fun, easy time. There was no pressure to have fun and they could all enjoy themselves at what ever level they are at. Next time you visit, we'll take you there. (All of you. I promise. If you visit, I'll take you all over the place!)

today...

was a very good day.

Harry had his art class and "Kids' Club" over at his little school. He loves his art class and is learning to do so much. He also likes Kids' Club and hanging out with his friends. He needs this outlet too.

Sam had speech where he didn't just talk to his therapist, he talked with her aides as well. I see big changes in store for my reticent little--sorry--"medium small" boy!

And Annika napped for more than an hour. I love it. I used the time to tuck Sam into bed for a nap and do lessons with Harry. We got so much accomplished. I love days like this.

I'm going to bed, but I'll write about Sam's first week at preschool tomorrow. Such a big kid!

Why won't she talk?

As I stated in my last post, Annika will be starting speech therapy soon. I'm not entirely sure when, but it will be in the next couple of months. (It would be sooner, but we won't be available for a while.)

After all that we've been through with Sam's speech and confidence, we kept an eye (or ear) out for anything similar in Annika. And sure enough, she isn't talking yet. Which in and of itself is probably not much to worry about, but with our family history, for Annika it is. She isn't trying to talk--she grunts here and there and has a couple of baby signs that she uses, but overall, she is quiet.

So I took her in to be evaluated by the people at Early Intervention (EI). EI is for families who's children are delayed in any way or have an issue that could affect their development. Going in I really wanted them to say, "no problem here, she'll catch up soon." But they didn't. Instead she is at a 7-9 month level for speech. I can't tell you how disheartening this is. I really wanted them to send me home and laugh at me for being such an overprotective mom. I also know that a speech issue that will be "fixed" fairly easily is nothing compared to what most of the other families at EI go through. But, like every other mom, I want my children to move easily through life. I don't want any of my children to struggle--especially not with something as basic as communicating.

In any case, Annika will be getting services soon. She goes in for a hearing test next month and for an actual speech evaluation then too. After that we'll know exactly what we have to do to get her at age level.

On the other hand, she tests at 36 months for fine motor skills!

The Decision--New and Improved

After writing my last post here the other day, I thought and thought about sending Harry to school. It just bothered me that there were so many reasons I could see to keep homeschooling and doing what we are doing and so few for sending him back. I also kept thinking that I should keep him home--you know the good old feeling that something isn't right about the decision.

So, I decided to follow that feeling. We are keeping him home next year. It just doesn't work to send him back. Sure, the class size is only 20, but here there's only one child in first grade. Here we can set out a bird buffet, pretend to be Jenny Wren, talk more about Erik the Red, do all of the subtraction we can take in one day. All of those things that make learning at home fun and joyous.

It's still going to require some juggling. Sam will have speech and he will still go to preschool--that'll be the hardest thing to deal with, schedule-wise. Annika will also start speech therapy, so there will be another thing to worry about.

But really, the benefits far, far outweigh the negatives. Like, I can't even see the negatives in the rear-view mirror!

yes, we really have done stuff...

really.

But between me being sick every other week and Easter...well, I just haven't been on here much at all. Obviously.

Also, there is that one little issue of Jason coming to me one night and asking me if I was planning to send Harry to school next year. I looked at him, completely shocked, and said, no...why?

So that started me thinking again about school and if I should send him next year. All of my being screamed NOOOOOOOOO. But I still decided to think about why not and also why it might be a good thing.

Reasons why not:

1. I don't want to. I don't want to lose the closeness that we have developed. I like what we are doing and I'm comfortable with our little home-based existence.
   
2. I can do a better job teaching him than a teacher with 20-30 kids.
3. It's a lot of fun opening up a book and exploring it with him.
4. We can do what we want when we want.
5. I don't have to worry about being late for school, packing a lunch (ugg) or getting him dressed.
6. He's really interesting to be with and getting more so the older he gets--why would I want to miss any of this?
7. I discovered that he has a talent and interest in creating art--something that wouldn't have been discovered in ps.
   

Reasons to send him:

1. He wants to go. He is very social and misses his friends.
2. In first grade the classes are limited to 20 kids.
3. It will be nice to have some more one-on-one time with Sam and Annika. And specifically for Sam to get out of Harry's very long shadow.
4. It'll be easier to get stuff done in the middle of the day--it's full day school and I won't feel quite so scattered. (Hopefully)

And the decision is...

Tentatively, Harry is going to First Grade and Sam to Preschool.

The decision was really driven by Sam's need for friends. He's been going to speech for over a year now, but that's just 30 minutes twice a week. I honestly don't know anyone who has a child Sam's age that we can get together with easily. Also, with Sam's personality quirks, he needs to get together with children more.

The preschool Harry went to and that Sam is going to is a coop, meaning that I have to bring snack once a month and "volunteer" twice a month. In order to be able to do that, Harry needs to be in school. Or I need a nanny.

In a very long blog post, my thought process and my decision. I'm okay with it some days and not others. But this is long enough for now, so good night.