2012

I am so excited to hit the ground running this week and re-start school! I spent some time over Christmas break re-arranging the school room and planning most of the next quarter in KONOS. I'm sure this quarter will have its challenges, but I'm so excited! More specifics forthcoming. :)

Catching up

Della's been in our family (on the "outside") for almost 6 weeks and we're getting into a pretty good groove around here. We are receiving meals from our church family which has been a huge help in getting used to managing everything. I am trying to add things one at a time to avoid burnout. So we actually did school a lot in November, more than I originally planned. Now that it's December, we are stepping back again from the academics of school and focusing on the Christmas season. So we've been doing lots of crafts, Advent activities, special activities and just spending time together. To my surprise, it's actually pretty "academic" but without the books we were using. For example, we're doing a lot of crafts with buttons, so the girls have had a lot of time sorting buttons to use. We've also been painting and practicing good artistic planning and ability.

I put together an Advent calendar/activity plan, which everyone's liked so far. I printed out a Bible verse for each day and glued it onto a card. I also planned an activity for each day and put that on a separate card. Each morning the day's card is sitting with the special elf that is in a new place every day. (Not "Elf on a Shelf" that everyone else and their mom is doing this year.) I chose activities such as cookie baking, crafts and ornament-making, places we're going to go and things we're going to do, and also things like "sing Christmas carols." It's been really fun and fit in nicely with our "December School."

This week and last they played with shaving cream or "snow" and made a huge mess! Then we sang Christmas carols and Caley played on the computer on a caroling website I found. We have been making salt dough ornaments and then painting them, and we learned about St Nicholas on December 6, St Nicholas Day. They even got treats in their shoes that morning! Yesterday they bought a toy for the toy drive, and today we're delivering it.

I feel good about taking December "off" from the usual academics of our school. It is giving us a lot of opportunities to grow in our traditions as a family.

Pictures to come!

The last few weeks

We have been busy the last few weeks but I've neglected to blog about it, mostly because we've just had so much going on! We did a week's study about yeast and mold which led to many opportunities for science, and a ton of fun! We learned that yeast emits gas by having the air blow up a balloon and also tested what yeast likes to eat best. We tested oil, salt, sugar, cookie (NutriGrain bar) and flour (and nothing for a control). We also grew mold on the bread we'd made the previous week and looked at it under a magnifying glass. Gross, but educational!

                                       

The following week we learned about babies, including a basic explanation of how babies are made. I was really nervous about this week, because I wasn't sure what kinds of questions the girls would ask. And the fact that they might put 2 and 2 together that Mommy has a baby in her tummy so...ya know. I prepared and had on hand a lot of books and such. But Caley was fine with simply knowing that it takes a Mommy and a Daddy to make a baby, and the baby starts out really small inside the mommy and grows and grows. We read a book about bellybuttons, that everyone has one, and looked at a magazine of "A Child is Born" with the prenatal photos and put them on a timeline of the baby's growth. I also arranged for us to go the Everett Pregnancy Resource Center and look at their materials, including models of babies. We were just in a small counseling room for about 20 minutes and I let the kids explore the models and put them in order of age. They loved it! Talking about babies also lent itself well to how to take care of babies, what babies need, how we can prepare for our baby and how much we've changed since we were babies. 

                                      

That same week we went to the pumpkin patch (pictures coming soon), played with a new train tent, and played with Legos with Daddy! 

Caley really is enjoying school. We are trying to be flexible and frequently do school work in the afternoon when Wesley is napping. It's easier for her to focus when he's not around climbing all over everything. I enjoy it because it frees up our mornings to do fun things together with everyone, or go somewhere together.

I am really glad to be homeschooling. It makes me really happy to be able to see our children learn together how to love one another and foster real relationships. So far this year is going really, really well and I couldn't be more pleased.
Thank you Jesus!

Bread and Grain

Our 3rd week of school focused on bread, wheat, and other grain. We threshed wheat (kind of, they got the idea), made bread on Monday, watched some videos about how flour is processed and how bread is made in a big bakery. My favorite activity of the week was sampling different types of flour such as dark rye, spelt, rice, and cornmeal. The girls observed each with their 5 senses, even their hearing, but their favorite was tasting each. It was so fun! I got the flours from the bulk section at Fred Meyer. Then they did a little craft with it, which accidentally got gross and thrown away. Sad.

The KONOS curriculum makes our school time fun and brings in a lot of science and history. I think school would get really boring and monotonous if we just did workpages all day. I also really like that KONOS suggests Bible activities. We learned about The Lord's Prayer as part of school one day last week.

Onto week 4!!

Week 2 in the bag!

We had a great second week of school! We finished up our study in plants, seeds, and roots. We planted grass at the end of last week and watched it grow this week, recording what we had observed. We also planted random seeds in some little clay pots and will see what grows in the next few weeks.

Caley is really enjoying her math study. She loves doing her weather chart and math worksheets every day. She's also really blowing me away with her reading.

We have been studying Ruth and read about half a chapter per day and talk about it. We got Caley her own Bible, the ESV Seek and Find Bible. It has all the ESV text like our personal Bibles, but also includes illustrations and "Seek and Find" questions and simplified versions of the stories. I really enjoy it because she can read along with me as I read the text in my own Bible.


This next week we are studying grain, wheat, and yeast. We will bake bread and examine different flours.Only 6 weeks left in this quarter and then it's BABY TIME!

Obligatory First Day of School photo!

 We are ready to go! September 6, 2011

 Wes wanted in on it too, he's part of school anyway!

This was from this summer, and is so cute I had to include it. I think this was after a particularly troubling morning with the girls. After the discipline, they cuddled up and read together. I love it.

The first week!

We had a GREAT first week of school! I am so encouraged!
We did school work Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week. Tuesday was awesome, despite Wesley being awake and active, which I've been anxious about. He happily entertained himself while I worked with the girls and even though the school room was a mess when we were done, everyone was happy and eager to help me clean up. Really all it needed was some tidying and a vacuum.
Thursday was great too, and Friday was even better because we did our work in the afternoon and Wesley was sleeping. Oh sweet peaceful school time...

Caley is a stinkin' rockstar! She is so excited to sit at the table and do her work for the day. She's reading amazingly, complying with her writing exercises, super eager to do her math work (calendar, weather graph and worksheets) and generally agreeable when something doesn't go her way. Believe me, a month ago she was a completely different kid and I didn't see this school thing happening easily. I am amazed and thankful for God's grace.

Amelia is free to come and go during school time. She sometimes likes to sit at the table with us and other times likes to go play with her toys alone. She generally will come play a game or eat snack with us in the school room. I have been doing her reading book with her but if she's not into it, I don't push it. At some point she will need to come work with us, but that's not when she's only 4.

One thing I'm learning about Caley is also to not push things, within reason. We have a hard time during writing. I have her write the current memory verse (usually only half) on her writing paper. She frequently complains that she can't write an "a" or whatever. I know she can. So I've been doing half of it and letting her finish, or she'll do the first half and I'll finish it. The thing is, three hours later when she's into something else, she's writing everything! Today she was copying what was on Sesame Street online. Her penmanship was beautiful! I know she'll come around. That's one thing I like about homeschooling...if something's not working, all we may need to do an environment change and she'll willingly show me her mad skills.

This week we studied seeds and roots, spent some time in the garden, planted grass in a pot inside, and got our rhythm down for how things may go this year. I'm so glad to be homeschooling because I get to spend my day with the three best kids ever, watching them learn, grow, fight, then hug and make-up, and move on.
Love.

Year-at-a-Glance 2011-2012

For my reference, here is a rough schedule of our school year.

I am also planning on including:

• 30 minutes per week speech therapy at Mukilteo Elementary
• 1-2 times per month co-op or field trip
• 1 time per month reading with seniors at Harbour Pointe Retirement
• Another service opportunity, perhaps through community group or women's group

September

• KONOS- Patience: Gardening/Plants/Grain/Bread
• Saxon 1
• Sorenson Reading and "A Lizard to Start With"

October

• KONOS- Patience: Human Birth/Animal Birth
• Saxon 1
• Sorenson Reading and "A Lizard to Start With"

November

• Saxon 1
• Free reading, maybe "A Lizard to Start With"
• Baby time!!

December

• Saxon 1
• Free reading
• Advent crafts/activities
• Baby!!

January

• KONOS- Trust: Deception/Sheep
• Saxon 1
• Sorenson Reading and "A Lizard to Start With"

February

• KONOS- Trust: Floating/Ships
• Saxon1
• Sorenson Reading and "A Lizard to Start With"

March

• KONOS- Trust: Flight/Airplanes
• Saxon 1
• Sorenson Reading and "A Lizard to Start With"
• Spring Break end of March

April

• KONOS- Stewardship: Ecology/Time/Money
• Saxon 1
• Sorenson Reading
• Easter Week activities

May

• KONOS- Stewardship: Prevention/Nutrition/Exercise
• Saxon 1
• Sorenson Reading

June

• KONOS- Stewardship: Rest/Fun
• Saxon 1
• Free reading
• Summer Break early June

Tomorrow is the day

Tomorrow we start our school year! I am so excited! On the agenda are some seed activities and working in the garden to learn about roots and we will plant some grass seeds in little pots. This weekend the kids helped Bill harvest some potatoes from the garden, which is basically the same thing as I planned for this week! I love how homeschooling can happen anytime, anywhere and not just during "school"!!

I hope to post our schedule sometime this week...but I'm not promising anything.

:)

Update before the new school year (and wrapping up the past school year)

Wow! I just realized that I haven't posted anything here since May! We finished up our school year at the end of May with a short study on rocks, plants, and animal classification. We also finished our math book (Saxon K) unceremoniously and Caley is making amazing progress on her reading skills. It seriously blows me away that I have a reader! She read her first chapter book this summer and also earned a "Finisher" award from the library in which she got to choose a free book.

Also in May we had a tea party for Mother's Day and went to Lobster Mania at Cost Cutter and played at the park. Caley will also continue her speech therapy into the next school year because she still qualifies. For some reason I thought she'd be tested again in order to qualify, but her test from 2010 guarantees her services until 2012, so it was just our therapist's discretion whether we should continue. Caley enjoys it and we've seen progress so we will continue it and reevaluate at the end of next year.

It was a good first "official" year of homeschooling!
Was it hard? Yes, at times, but I think anyone with three little kids would agree it's a challenging season regardless of their schooling. There were some challenging times because of Wesley dropping his morning nap and then discovering and enduring the first trimester of pregnancy.
What would I change? As far as curricula, I'd change nothing. What I would change (and will this fall) is making school time sacred from other activities (for the most part). I seemed to get more frustrated when I had too much on my plate. So, going into next year, I have to consider my time and commitments outside of the home. We aim to do school 4 times a week instead of 3.
What was the best part? Getting to see my kids learn! And learn to love each other! Sure, they bicker and such, but those "difficult times" are simply more opportunities for my kids to learn sharing, forgiveness, patience, and repentance!

 Wesley's first attempt with playdough, and he didn't eat any! I was impressed!

 We visited Cost Cutter for their annual Lobster Mania event. I'm glad we did, because in July they closed the store. :(

I'm hoping to make these pictures of First and Last Day of School a tradition.

 Here's what the school room looks like! It's fun to put their crafts up on the walls and remember what we've studied.

 We went to Kirkland beach to open the envelope after our ultrasound and found out we're having a baby girl!

Caley picked this book for free from the library summer reading program.

I think I am ready for this next year, and looking forward to getting back into a routine!

A reminder

I don't think our family qualifies as "large" but it's definitely larger than I imagined it would be when I was little. Here is a blog post by a mother of 9 who homeschools and are some things I am realizing are important regardless of family size while homeschooling. http://largefamilylogistics.blogspot.com/2008/10/large-family-homeschooling.html

Large Family Homeschooling

Edited 10/31/08

1. Learning happens all the time all the time all the time

2. Turn off the media and live your own life

3. Learn to learn

4. Lots of books: reference books such as Usborne, DK, classics, dictionaries (more than one), biographies, and of course the Bible and Bible reference books

5. Play outside and use the imagination

6. Chores, indoors and out

7. Animals: pets, livestock

8. Garden

9. Real life experiences develop a can-do attitude

10. Talk about life and current events

11. Older children naturally teach the younger children--a beautiful thing when the older children are taught well

12. Use non-consumable curriculum and pass it down the line

13. Spiral notebooks and sketchbooks--don't let them tear paper out to avoid the paper mess they can quickly create

So, apparently this homeschooling thing is more about my sanctification as a mother than about the kids learning stuff. Yes they are learning stuff, but it's not always about reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. And I'm learning more than they are.

Easter Crafts!

This past week we skipped traditional school and just did Easter crafts! It was great! I decided to do this because a main reason we chose to homeschool is because we want the girls to be exposed to Jesus more than if they were in public school. (Obviously if Caley was in public kindergarten, we would still teach her about Jesus, but the amount of time we spend with her being homeschooled just increases the opportunities of telling her about Jesus.) I didn't want to be overwhelmed with doing what I'd originally planned for school (with math and writing and reading) and do Easter crafts last week. Oh the freedom!

 Here are some of the crafts we made:

 The sign on the middle cross says "Our King"

And the grand finale was the empty tomb resurrection cake!

 He is risen indeed!

Saturday we went to an egg hunt! And Sunday we went to Qwest Field for Mars Hill's Easter service. It was amazing!! Each child got a coloring book with crayons and the pictures were from the Doctrine series, which tells the basic theology of what we believe. It's a great tool and the girls had a fun time coloring!

Spring Break!

We took a Spring Break this week, but didn't do much differently in our activities except I didn't feel the pressure to do Caley's math and KONOS studies. We did however go to the Children's Museum and help at the new church building planting plants. The kids got totally messy but it was really fun!

We will pick up Monday with a new KONOS unit in Orderliness. We will cover such topics as calendars and seasons, planets, sequencing, and animal, plant, and rock classification and the unit will take us to the end of May when our school year will be over. I can hardly believe we are nearly done with the first year of homeschooling! I have learned so much!

As Wesley gets older and is now walking all over the place, homeschooling is reaching another challenge because Wesley always wants in on the fun. He is very good about taking an afternoon nap, but that is also the girls' quiet time and my rest time so I am hesitant to give up the afternoon nap to doing school work. But if we try to do school work at the table while Wesley is awake, he is quite the hand-full. I am hoping to be able to teach him to do something while we do school, at least during the writing, math and reading time for Caley. He is fine if we are doing projects and can be involved or if the girls are independently working I can keep him busy, but it's not always like that.

I also picked up next year's math book for Caley, we are going to use Saxon Math 1. She has really seemed to enjoy the Math K book and Math 1 is similar so it's worth a shot. I've been able to use my own manipulatives instead of buying the Saxon ones which are very expensive. Instead of unifix cubes we use legos, and instead of counting bears we use little plastic figures. When it calls for number cards I just cut up paper and make my own. With the 1st grade book though it begins to move into worksheets which I'll need to purchase.

Now that we will have a new baby at the end of October/beginning of November, I'm not sure how next year will look. I've contemplated starting early in August, taking a break in November and December (as we did last year with the Christmas rush) and then re-beginning in January. But I feel unsure about starting school when it's still beautiful weather and we'd rather be outside in the sprinkler. Alternately, we could start in September, take a break in November and December, then start again in January and go all the way through June or even into July the next summer. I'm really primarily concerned about Caley's math book, which I'd like to finish. But since we'll probably do things flying solo again, I guess it doesn't really matter when we do what. :)
I'll leave you with a sweet picture of my two girls reading.

Other things we've been doing...

Another new development in our homeschool is Mommy is expecting another baby! Due date is November 4th, so I'm about 6 weeks along. We're all looking forward to welcoming another little one to our family and teaching about human development along the way. Caley is going to be especially helpful, I hope. Keep track of things through the baby ticker on the right.

What We've Been Doing

We are into the next unit on horses and it's been pretty fun. We have been coloring pictures of horses, learning about how to control the horse by using the bridle and the purpose of a saddle, reading books about horses and we even watched "Secretariat" about a racing horse. The girls have really enjoyed it. In the next week or so I'm hoping to visit a horse farm. The weather just hasn't been conducive for such a trip. This week we made stick horses out of Daddy's old socks. We raced them and pretended to ride them to playgroup this week.

For math we are up to about lesson 80 in the Saxon K book, and ahead of schedule to finish on time. I'm so glad! Lately I've been trying to think of more natural ways to teach whatever concept the lesson is addressing, such as by ordering or graphing Caley's toys or suckers instead of some uninteresting thing the lesson suggests. Last week the lesson was on ordering by length left-to-right, longest-to-shortest and I asked her to order my jewelry instead of whatever the lesson said. She really got into it! Another lesson was about ordinal position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) and we were able to work it into dancing to music and making a parade.
I've also been trying to be more intentional about involving the kids in whatever projects I need to get done around the house. They very enthusiastically helped me wash the refrigerator, vacuum the car, sort the toys in the mud room, and Caley just today helped rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. I'm thankful to have a lot of time with them that we can work on things like homemaking. In my mind I count it as school, just an additional activity to their academic work.

Caley is also continuing her speech therapy, and still loves going to see Mrs. Rose each week. She loves getting stickers and practicing her words. I have a feeling she'll qualify again next year, as Mrs. Rose said she's doing very well but still not consistently generalizing in her daily speech.

And as always, Amelia is being silly!!