Monday, August 31, 2009

Back to School

Labor Day is super late this year, so we started school this week. We are following a similar schedule to last year, fully expecting to slow things down when the baby arrives in January or February who's (by the way) gender will be revealed next Wednesday. Woohoo!!! Look to the right for a rundown of the subjects and curricula we are using, which may be adapted as things progress.
Today we did a fun Noah's Ark project. I bought this brand new at Value Village for $3!

We also tested the waters for Amelia's potty training abilities. She did great! She wore training pants all day (except at naptime) and only had one accident and stayed dry during her nap. Go Amelia!
We're looking forward to another year of school, and updating the blog! Enjoy.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

VBS 2009

We just finished a week of fun in the sun, I mean mud, at VBS. The curriculum was "Upward Bound" and it was a camping/outdoors theme, which was fitting because it was held in a park behind some apartments in Mountlake Terrace partly as an outreach to the residents there, but there were mostly Mars Hill families. I served in the nursery and Caley and Amelia were in their own classes without me. It was wonderful to see them be part of a group without my being there every second. I especially liked watching Caley. Now that we're going to scrap homeschooling and enroll her in a preschool, but it was extremely helpful to see her in a group of peers with teachers. I observed that Caley sometimes "dilly-dallys" instead of being on task. To her credit though, there were at least 20 kids in her class and there's only so many adults. She was singing the songs and always did her craft and proudly showed it to me at the end of the day. She always waved hello when walking past my class, and sometimes even while she was in another station like storytime. She had her friends that she played with, and I was very thankful she played well with one particular friend Lenora. Caley was also very excited every day to see "The Hiker" who, in her words, is "the guy who was at our house for a long long time." She means Pastor Dick from our church who recently did some work on our back deck.
VBS was fun, exhausting, but well-worth every minute.

Little House

I've been looking for a good chapter book to read to Caley, one that encourages the right characteristics, isn't too scary, and has some pictures. We were reading "Henry Huggins" but every time we read it I got a sour taste in my mouth. Especially for Caley, who's only 4, Henry isn't really the kind of role model I think she needs right now. He's was always trying to make money and there was a lot of competition between him and his neighbor friends. I remember reading those books in grade school, so maybe they'll be more appropriate for her in a few years.
So we tried reading "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it, and more importantly, so does Caley. The narrative is simple and the values mirror what I hope to encourage in Caley, a strong love for family and working together. I have literally had this book in my personal library since I was a little girl and I have never read it. I don't think it was even assigned while I was in school. The topics are ones I wouldn't even think about, but for Laura were a part of daily life. So far we have read about "Butcherin' Time" in which Ma makes head cheese from a pig head and Laura and Mary play with the bladder as a ball, in-depth description of how Pa cleans his gun every evening, churning butter, and the simplicity of Christmas.

I know a lot of the content may be hard for Caley to really understand, but I also know that this book and the others in this series are ones we can read over and over, each time delving deeper and bringing in other subjects as part of her schooling. I can already think of many projects and subjects to research and we've only read 80 pages in the first of 6-7 books.