Wednesday Morning

7 Quick Takes: Our 2015-2016 School Year

It's Friday!  We start our 2015-2016 school year in three days!  Aside from not quite having all of my books here yet (at least they're ordered!), I feel pretty ready thanks to our new schedule!

---1---

New schedule?  Well, after hearing Sarah MacKenzie and Pam Barnhill's webinar about block scheduling, I made up my own schedules on Word and decided to go for it in my own way.  What does this mean for us?

It means instead of doing a little bit of every subject each day, we are doing a lot of only several non-core subjects for about six weeks at a time.  Math, handwriting, and English will have daily lessons all year!  This is very different from my previous years of planning, in which I planned only three large terms, and worked on the same books for most of the year.  I found that Beth would lose steam when we did it the proper Charlotte Mason way of consuming only tiny chunks of information at a time.  And I'm a total believer in doing what works best, so we are moving away from that idea and we will see how this one goes!

We have also developed some good morning habits, and I hope we can maintain those for awhile.  After breakfast- we clean up, say morning prayers at our family altar, read a story from the children's bible, have quiet individual prayer for a couple of minutes, and then listen to and sing a hymn (I use The Cathedral Singers "Catholic Latin Classics," a free album on Amazon Prime, it's much less awkward  to me than singing alone unaccompanied).  Then they will get a small break while I pull myself together (read that as I will talk myself into tackling another day with a cheerful heart), and then we will start school.  This is my plan.  Will it happen like this every day?  Absolutely not, I know that.  But we will strive for the ideal.

---2---

I'm also pulling back a little more from Mater Amabilis, the free online Catholic Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum we have mostly used in the past.  I just needed to streamline a few things, like combining grammar/phonics/copywork into one neat little book from Catholic Heritage Curricula (CHC for short).  All three kids will be using CHC phonics programs, including Little Stories for Little Folks (to learn how to read since 100 Easy Lessons isn't working well for Luke).  I'm looking forward to seeing how it works in our family, and I'm praying it makes our day a little smoother.  Beth will also be using CHC geography since she loved it so much at co-op last year, and we do our own history lessons with A Child's History of the World- which will alternate terms with Apologia's science.  I think everything else is taken from Mater Amabilis for Beth, and while the boys are in younger grades, I'm sure they will listen on and participate with some of Beth's lessons to a certain extent.

---3---

We share several subjects as a family: history, science, poetry, music and artist study, and some religion.  The boys are sharing family geography and literature (though I'm sure they'll listen on to Beth's literature as well).  Each child is using Faith and Life for catechism at their own level (well, Beth is doing 4th grade in that), and Luke will be preparing for his First Holy Communion next spring!  Both boys will hopefully learn to read at their own pace, and we will all share saint stories and advent/lent preparations.  Since we pretty naturally live a rich liturgical year at home, and since our parish hosts many amazing liturgical feasts throughout the years, I don't feel the need to hyper-focus on that for "school" time.  It will continue to be part of our daily life!

---4---

We will be participating in our beloved co-op again this year!  The kids are already super-excited about seeing their friends soon.  This year, Beth will have Bible History (which I'm terribly excited about because she's very passionate about reading the bible!), Art/Music, Ballet, and Junior Master Gardening.  Luke's class will be using Classically Catholic Memory (Beta Year), and Jack will be reading Tomie dePaola books, learning geography and math from me, religion studies, and play time/nature walks.  I'm so very nervous about Caeli being in the nursery for an hour- especially now that she's usually napping at 10 am every day.  I will probably try to have her nap on my back in the Ergo, but I suppose we will have to wait and see what actually happens in six weeks!

---5---

Caeli.  What am I going to do?  What are your best tips for teaching three children WHILE keeping a toddler alive and entertained?  I thought to pull out our old high chair.  She loves sitting in it and it might actually contain her for 30 minutes while I do reading lessons?  We are also utilizing more audiobooks this year, for history and some of Beth's geography, because I don't see how else I can do this!

---6---

We haven't decided what extracurricular activities we will do yet.  Ryan and I are very tempted to take a semester off from soccer (shhh, don't tell Luke- we're undecided!) because we will be traveling most weekends in September, and Ryan would actually like to go to an Aggie tailgate this year!  I think we're burned out from spending our Saturdays at the soccer field, and the fall semester is always SO hot...

Beth and Luke have been taking piano lessons all summer, and we will continue those.  I'd love to get Beth back into an art class of some sort, and Jack is begging to take gymnastics.  Maybe we can find an (air-conditioned) homeschool gymnastics class?  Air-conditioned soccer?! All three will also participate in their girls and boys clubs again this year, and we will most likely join 4H so we can start earning some college scholarship money!

---7---

Am I exhausted yet?  Not really.  Planning their schedules this way (instead of mapping out a day-to-day lesson plan) has been a cinch.  I still have to plan my co-op class and still have to figure out exactly how to use the LSFLF CHC readers, but I'm cautiously optimistic about everything.  I also know enough now that the fall semester is easier to tackle than the long, dark, rainy spring semester.  But I've planned my days of rest throughout the school year, and intend to use each of them in a truly meaningful way.  In fact, I plan to convince Ryan that I will need at least one night alone at the beach in February or March. ;-)

(Please don't feel behind in your own planning because I've posted this and have this part figured out.  I've learned that my planning doesn't have to be perfect- only that I have to participate in God's plan for our family, show up for the job, but then leave room for the Holy Spirit to guide us and inspire us.  It's very possible all of this will be thrown out the window sooner than later!  We are starting school early this year because we plan to take a two-week road trip in the fall, and I wanted to complete some school work before we left.  So I beg you, don't feel behind or bad, but I hope my resources and planning ideas might inspire you in your home school!)

A Happy Morning

We don't always look so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the mornings!  But we managed to get this nice picture before co-op a couple of weeks ago.  I love their navy polos and khaki bottoms.  They love their teachers and I love that they love their teachers.  They learn so much and get to see friends every week.  I feel so blessed to have our co-op!

Recalibrating Our Routine

I have been reading a lot of A Sabbath Mood Homeschool, and she wrote a blog post about recalibrating your morning routine that I have been thinking about.  I like our routine.  It works for us.  I really wish I could be a morning person, and maybe one day I will be, but right I can't make myself get up any earlier than 6:45.  But, if I actually stick to that, I should be able to get a few things done before the big kids come downstairs and we officially start our day- so that will be my first change! 

My goal will be to get dressed, make my bed and my latte, have morning prayer, and probably start a load of laundry all before serving breakfast to the olders.  As per our previous schedule, I like to start morning chores at 8 and work until about 8:45, with a 15 minute break before we start school at 9.  Getting the kids back into doing their morning chores is going to be a challenge.  We've all been "off" since Caeli has joined our family, and I can't function like that anymore!  I had a housekeeper on and off for awhile but at this time we've decided that it's not the right decision for our family, so I really need to utilize that 45 minute window in the morning to take care of cleaning!

We have lessons from 9-12, more or less, depending on the day.  I'm not sure how it's going to be this school year with a pre-toddler crawling around the school room!

We pray the Angelus and have lunch around 12, pick up after lunch, and have rest time from 1-2:30.  This means kids upstairs, mama downstairs, but I think now that they're getting older I might need to structure their rest time a bit more by offering them audiobooks or handicrafts to do on their own.  Sometimes the boys are lost in play, sometimes they're at each other's throats!

2:30-3 is snack and pre-dinner prep (I'm trying to get better about this too) and then I want afternoons to be reserved for handicrafts and nature and playtime.  I think this will be easier this year because Beth is becoming so capable of doing many things on her own!  She's learning how to follow recipes (she made banana bread today!) and I think she'll be able to use my sewing machine with just minimal help from me.  She always wants to be creating something so I have to come up with a lot!

We have a 15-minute pickup when Ryan is on his way home from work, dinner is usually between 5:30- 6, and the evenings are spent playing with Daddy!

Since our summer schedule has been a little wacky, I'm already starting to ease back into things so that it's not such a shock to our system come August 25.  Re-establishing morning chores has been the most difficult task so far but habit training happens slowly sometimes!  

I don't feel like summer is almost over because we don't have the mad back-to-school rush that I think a lot of families experience.  Easing back into our routine will help eliminate that feeling too, I think, because we will basically just have to add lessons into our day.  And Beth is already looking forward to starting school- I think she's been a little bored lately. :-(  I hope that means she'll be enthusiastic in three weeks!

Our Back-to-School Post

For the 2013-2014 school year, Beth will be in 1st grade, Luke will be in Pre-K4, and Jack will be in Pre-K3.  We have a lot of the same activities going on this year- we've dropped a couple but added one big one.  Beth is so excited to be telling everyone she's in first grade! We started school on August 12, and just wrapped up our third full week of school.  So far it's going great, I think even better than last year!

I'll start with the boys, since they'll be easiest to write about!  Neither Luke nor Jack will be following a formal curriculum as I don't think either of them need or want that right now.  I have two brand-new workbooks for Luke: a Getty Dubay first handwriting book general math/handwriting workbook.  Since we follow Charlotte Mason's philosophy of using living books and quality literature, Luke will be able to participate in some of Beth's lessons to the extent that he wants- and I suspect he'll be very interested in her literature books. ;-)  Last year he'd participate in religion and history sometimes too, and I bet he'll also be interested in our science as it's very family-oriented.  My goals for him this year are to foster creativity and let him be little, get as much outside time as possible, learn some handicrafts, and work on good habits and virtue.  He will also be attending a Pre-K class with Jack in our new co-cop, which I know he'll LOVE! 

Jack is a new 3-year-old, and I have no expectations of him this year other than to play, learn, and grow.  His imagination makes me laugh- I hear him playing "baby" by himself with a doll and he talks to the baby and tells her what to do... It cracks me up.  At this point, he is playing generally very well with Luke- for the past 3 weeks of school the two of them have been playing nicely together for the nearly two-three hours Beth and I do school work.  AMAZING.  What a blessing- and don't I know it.  Sometimes they will quarrel or come sit and listen to what we're reading, but for the most part they're playing!

Beth has seven primary subject this year.  I am mostly following a second-grade curriculum from Mater Amabilis, making a few changes.

1. Math- She is finishing up her first grade book from Abeka, she should be done by Christmas break.  After that I'm not sure what we'll do yet, she wants to change programs so I have to do a bit of research.  She hates the repetition of  math facts, but she loves the cutesy pages and when we play games and use manipulatives.  So we'll see...

2. Religion- Each day we do something a little different.  Monday we read A Life of Christ for Children, Tuesday we do a lesson from Fath and Life 1, and Wednesday we do a saint study (right now studying Juan Diego using this book, usually 3 chapters/lesson, and supplementing with library books and coloring pages- you know she loves to color!).  She is also continuing to learn her Latin prayers- we are over halfway done with the Our Father right now- we just memorize a line/week using Pray It In Latin).  Starting in January we will begin Faith and Life 2 and First Holy Communion prep using the Baltimore Catechism and the St. Joseph First Communion Catechism.  I would like for her to receive her First Holy Communion at Easter when we have family members in town to celebrate, but I still have lots of details to work out! 

3. English- Every day the goal is 2 pages of handwriting and 3 pages of phonics from Explode the Code 2.5.  She's reading well now, so I don't have a "reading" course anymore- she reads to me now when I ask her to.  She also does dictation and copywork.  Dictation is twice a week- I am starting small while she is still learning how to do it- I write a short easy sentence down for her to study the spelling and punctuation, then I take it away and repeat the sentence to her while she writes it down.  This is basically her introduction into spelling and grammar, Charlotte Mason-style.  Copywork is usually scripture or a poem we're working on, but I haven't been as worried about this formally since she is technically doing copywork with her handwriting program.

4. Literature- We are reading Swords and Sorcerers (King Arthur!), Greek Mythology, and poetry from the Harp and Laurel Wreath.  She is memorizing poetry and narrating the other stories back to me.  I think we all enjoy this part of our school day- cuddling on the couch and reading new stories!  In the evenings Ryan usually reads a chapter from one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books- they're on Little House on Plum Creek right now.  Sometimes he and Beth take turns reading to each other.

5. History- Okay this gets a little confusing, even for me!  The curriculum we follow uses living books to teach history, which I love and will continue to do because I have already seen the fruits of this style of learning, but our co-op is learning Early American History using a Seton textbook.  So my plan is to follow the textbook's lessons (Columbus, Pocahontas, etc.) that she'll be learning about each week, and use a day at home to supplement with a living book.  This will require some planning on my part... Which I haven't started yet since we haven't started co-op yet!  So for now in that time space we are planning a trip and studying the geography of where we will be going!  Works for me. :-)  Tuesday is Weather and Climate and Wednesday is a rotating book.  We are learning about European history, and have started with the book Vendela in Venice, which is a wonderful book about a little girl's trip to Venice with her father.  Each week we read several pages then study the maps for location, geography, and rivers, etc.  I know they're all learning something because one day she asked me if we could ride on a vaporetto and see the golden horses when we visit, just like Vendela did.  And they were all playing "gondola" one day, trying to recreate the straw hats the gondolier's wear! We have also watched a few youtube videos about Venice, to reinforce everything and present it in a different way.  We are also starting a very rough timeline on index cards, at this point the concept of chronological order of the history of the world is still forming in her little brain so it's very rough still!

6. Science- We do science every day, because it's something we all enjoy for the most part.  We are using Natural Science Through the Seasons supplemented with the Handbook of Nature Study.  Each week includes a little experiment that have been easy enough for us all to do together at home- right now the first few chapters have been about plants so we've made clippings and are trying to root new geraniums, setting white carnations in dyed water, and even made flower arrangements!  We do these lessons two days a week, and the other day we are reading from the Burgess Bird Book for Children.  We listen to bird calls from allaboutbirds.org and have learned about their nesting and migration habits, along with the temperaments of some of the birds.  Either I read this or I have Beth listen to it from booksshouldbefree.com.  She is really enjoying this book, and also the Animal Book which we've been listening to on long car trips.  LOVE that website!  We will also be going on weekly nature walks in the co-op, and attending a once-a-month nature class at a local nature center.

7. Arts- We are studying the life of an artist per term, using living books of course, and doing picture studies on his/her art.  Right now we're studying Monet and I can't tell you how much she (and I!) have both learned already.  We have already finished Linnea in Monet's Garden and picked up a biography or two on him.  We have Katie Meets the Impressionists and after studying Degas and some Renoir last year, I think she has a good understanding of Impressionist art.  But she's actually getting to know Monet and his family- which is more important to me than her memorizing facts and dates.  We're also reading about Vivaldi and learning his music, though there are not many living books on him as there are Monet!  She is taking a twice-a-month art class, and will be starting piano lessons at the end of September.

We do all of this in about 2.5-3 hours, have lunch, then have rest time.  After rest time, we usually read a short story during snack time, a story about virtue... Or being nice to each other, or obeying mommy, or whatever the issue of the day might be... Heh.  Afternoons will be spent on handicrafts- my goal is to start something on Monday so Beth can pick it up during the week whenever she wants to.  We will be sewing, crocheting, embroidering, making clothes for our new gnomes/fairies people, and baking.  And doing chores, and playing with friends... Honestly we've stayed pleasantly busy so far that we're not feeling rushed and crazy, the house is actually staying in pretty decent shape, and I've been able to keep good meals on the table.  I'm going to enjoy it while I can, because I know it won't be this easy for much longer!

The big thing we're adding to our schedule this year is our once-a-week co-op.  I am so excited about this!  Every Thursday, we will start our day by attending mass, then Beth will go to class with K-2 graders and Luke and Jack will go to a preschool room.  I stay and help out as I'm needed, as I am not a teacher this year.  Beth will have classes in US Geography, Bible History, PE, Art, Language Arts, Nature Study, and American History.  We all come together for an hour of lunch and playtime in the middle of the day, and they're going to wear uniforms!  They're all excited about it but they really have no idea what's going to happen.  I'm hoping Jack will enjoy the preschool program as much as I KNOW Luke will!

I know some might look at our list and just gawk!  But it works for us at this moment.  And our plan for school is one year at a time.  I have a day planner that I've done my lesson planning in, so we are set to go for the whole fall semester. Overall, as I continue to read through Charlotte Mason's writings,  I am trying to stick to her idea that education is an atmosphere, and continue to create a beautiful home filled with beautiful art and music, an understanding of virtue and good habits.  It's still pretty chaotic most of the time, but we're all working on it and we're all getting better at it.  We are educating the children for eternity, to recognize the beauty in our world, and to have a relationship with the material that they learn.  Please pray for us this year!  Good luck to all the other back-to-schoolers out there!

Pre School!

This week was our first full week of school!  Well, we started on Tuesday since Monday was labor day. :-)

Beth is 4.5, which means she technically isn't kindergarten age yet.  After lots of thought and prayer, we decided to start her on a homeschool kindergarten curriculum but still call it preschool, and just take it slowly with her. We chose a classical, Catholic curriculum called Mother of Divine Grace, and it's pretty much fool proof.  ;-)  It spells out everything I need to do with each subject, but allows me the flexibility to deviate if I want or need to.  And since I'm using it as preschool, we're planning on deviating a lot!

My small little compilation of our books.

Weekend of Firsts

Friday, September 2 was First Friday, and we had our First activity of the year for our homeschool group.  Our group met for mass (the children's First time at this parish), then went to a new park for the First time.  They had a lot of fun playing with some old friends and making some new friends!  Finally I'm starting to feel like one of the "seasoned" moms in our group, and my older children are finally old enough that they'll go off and actually play with friends instead of me having to entertain them!  A new First feeling!

Random pictures

"J" is for Jellyfish!  We made jellyfish out of jello!  I don't think we'd ever made jello before and of course Luke loved it (he loves everything!) and Beth ate a few bites before she decided she was done.  It was a good conclusion to our jellyfish lesson that day!

Rainbows

We've been slacking off on school already, haha. Didn't the school year just start? Well, my plan was to see how it all goes, and a few weeks into it I've already learned a lot!

As much as I'd love to have a dedicated school room, at this point it's not working. It's upstairs, and we don't spend a lot of time upstairs. Having a formal school room already has Beth thinking that school = work, and I don't like that one bit. She's too little for that. So instead I don't always tell Beth we're going to "have school," I just do it. I tell her we have a new activity and then we get going!

I also don't like the trendy "lapbooks." It's a cute idea but I'm a tightwad and I don't like printing off so many pages when we only use them once or twice! So I've continued to scan those sites with all the cute printables, but I only print off one or two pages for our use.

I've used my new laminator. I love it! I downloaded a shape game, laminated it, and put velcro dots on the back. It seriously looks like a professional game, expect I did it!

I have so many things I want to buy, mostly arts and crafts items! Dot markers, cookie cutters for play doh, (gluten-free play doh...), washable markers, stickers, books... And something pretty to organize everything in!

And while I've attempted to make lesson plans, I usually wind up winging it. This week we've focused a lot on colors because of a library book we checked out called Mouse Paint. We've talked about colors, and that led us to rainbows, which led us to collecting colored items around the house, which led us to Noah's Ark, which led us to coloring rainbow pages. Tomorrow I hope to set them up outside and let them have at it with the finger paint!

i asked her to draw a rainbow. she wound up mixing colors (crayons don't mix very well!) and writing some letters instead!

we collected red items, blue items, and yellow items. then we found items with red and yellow, red and blue, and blue and yellow, and even a couple of items with all three colors. then we drew it out on paper, mixed the colors, and drew a rainbow!

Shape Sorting

One of our "lessons" today was sorting three different shapes of pasta, then counting how many pieces they each had. This is, by far, one of their favorite activities we've ever done! Though Luke kept trying to eat the uncooked pasta, he understood that different shapes went in different categories. Beth is working on 1:1 recognition with objects still, so counting the shapes was a bit challenging for her, but perfectly so! Today we also read a the creation story from a Children's Bible I checked out from the library, Beth summarized the story back to me, then we made a booklet filled with pictures that she drew from the story (sun, moon, Eve, flowers, butterfly, the sea, and a tree). Earlier this week she made a similar booklet for Goodnight Moon (cat, moon, house, little old lady on a rocking chair). She really loves drawing, she gets that from her daddy!


I'm looking for a good Children's Bible, something with a few paragraphs per story, beautiful pictures, and a lot of stories (not just Noah's Ark and Christmas, you know?). Please send me your recs!

Home School

We've started! I kicked off our home school yesterday morning, we did about 45 minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Today was about 30 minutes in the morning and 60 in the afternoon. The thing is, while I'm calling it school, it's definitely not real "school. " It's what I've been wanting to do with Beth for several months now! She craves structure and planned activities, which I've gotten away from since probably the end of my second trimester with Jack. She asks to have more school because to her, it's all just lots of fun!

Lesson one from Who Am I? The Trinity.

Luke's "tot trays" lined up on the bed. Maybe one day I'll have bookshelves, but for now this works! Each tray has a different activity for him, things we already have around our house but things he'd be more inclined to play with when it's offered to him on a simple tray. He played with the blocks for about 20 minutes because, unlike in the playroom, he wasn't distracted by other toys! I will change out the trays at least once a week, though I'm seriously lacking on activities for him beyond our typical playroom toys.

Luke spent time building blocks and going through his tot trays one by one. The goal for his learning time, on top of actually learning about the contents of the tray, is that we only play with one tray at a time, and that we clean up when we're done playing! I spend time working one-on-one with him while Beth is busy with an activity. My goal is to spend plenty of one-on-one time with both of them.

This is an idea I had but haven't really finished up yet because I'm having a hard time with Photoshop Elements. I've cropped pictures and typed names next to the photo, and planned on making these for all of our family members. Beth then copies the names with her letters.

This afternoon we made a "minit book." Beth colored, correctly placed, and glued, while I did the cutting. It's a rebus book for the rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle," where pictures replace certain words. I just learned what a rebus book was yesterday!

Jack Jack chilled in the bouncy chair...For a few minutes. :-)

Nothing like a little nature study thanks to the deer and hummingbirds in our backyard during our lessons!

Inspired

water play

After a lengthy discussion, Ryan and I have decided we're going to give a shot at homeschooling Beth for pre-kindergarten. It's going to be a trial period to see if it's something we both feel comfortable doing, and depending on how it goes we may or may not officially homeschool her next year (or the year after) for kindergarten. I am thrilled and excited to be giving this a real shot! I'm surrounded with friends who homeschool and a part of an excellent Catholic homeschooling group. We have been taking small steps on this journey for awhile now, attending activities with our homeschool group and learning from the more experienced mamas. :-)

As it turns out, the more I look into what's suggested for Beth's age group, the more I realize I'm already homeschooling her without even knowing it. I think most of my friends are doing these things with their toddlers and preschoolers naturally, helping them get started on the right foot. For example, daily reading, letter recognition, paraphrasing the stories, discussing the colors and meanings of the pictures in the book, and even coming up with supplemental activities. I did this with Dora television episodes a couple of times a long time ago to make myself feel less guilty for letting her watch tv- we made a "flute" and marched around the house, like in the music episode. ;-)

Everyone is telling me to take it easy with Beth and not overdo it. I can't help overdoing it though, it's in my nature! But really, I'm going to try to not go crazy. I am not buying an official curriculum for her, but I've spent a LOT of time devouring beautiful blogs with millions of wonderful ideas. In fact, it's slightly overwhelming, but I'm learning to look at things from a realistic perspective- what can I accomplish given my time and my circumstances?

I plan to try Who Am I? preschool and kindergarten work and activity book for our "religion" lessons, I picked it up pretty cheap at a recent consignment sale! It's full of simple lessons and activities on who we are as Christians- the first lesson is on the trinity. I'll do one, maybe two lessons a week. We'll see how it goes then adapt from there.

Probably everything else we do will just be things I make up as we go. I love the idea of picking a theme for the week and incorporating books, geography, colors and letters, and activities based on that theme. I also want to incorporate bibles verses and have them start memorizing verses, something I feel that's important to them as Catholic Christians.

I also want to have a little one-on-one "school" time with Luke, I love this blogger's "Tot School" and hope to follow along with some of her activities. She has some wonderful ideas, she's very inspiring! For Beth, I really like this blog and this blog. The idea for me is that I spend less time re-creating the wheel so to speak, and instead just copy everything else that these moms have done, hehehe.

All these grand ideas mean that I have a little bit of organizing to do! Yay! (I know I'm a dork, but you all knew that.) I have a huge mess in my pantry/utility room that I need to figure out. I just bought a laminator from Wal-Mart so that the materials I print off for Beth can be re-used for Luke in a couple of years, and I'm in the process of moving my "office" upstairs into our empty bedroom. A big problem right now is that Jack goes to sleep in our bedroom at night so I don't have access to my printer or other supplies, so I'm temporarily going to re-locate upstairs until it becomes his bedroom in a few months.

the bags below are full of manipulatives and other odds and ends i got from freecycle

While most of me is really excited about the prospect of homeschooling, another part of me is scared and the last tiny part thinks I must absolutely be insane. Most days my two oldest children drive me at least a little crazy, and I wonder if I "need" the break of sending them to school. But the idea of sending them to public school terrifies me, and I sincerely have the desire be the primary educator of my children. I have a desire in my heart, and I know the Lord will bless that. However, Ryan and I will definitely continue to pray for guidance and discernment as we move closer to kindergarten. Luckily we still have a little time!

Weekend Project!

We're back to our weekend projects! This one was sort of necessary though- our mailbox fell off its pole, and our mail lady was leaving threatening notes on our mail! So we had to get a new mailbox, and we decided to replace the whole pole since the old one was ugly.


We are also finally wrapping up our "H" week that we started...umm...before Jack was born? Needless to say, we've had a break from our schooling! I'm feeling anxious and ready to get back into a routine, so we finished up "H" with hanging our hummingbird feeder! Beth and Luke helped me mix the nectar by pouring sugar and water in the pot so I could boil it, then we went outside to hang it up together on Friday. I saw a hummingbird this morning! So far we've only seen that one, but hopefully they'll discover the feeder and then we can move it closer to the house.

(the sun was right in their eyes!)

My plan of attack, starting in a couple of weeks, is that we'll start "school" again two or three days a week, visit either the library or the Children's Museum once a week, designate a couple of chore days, and we'll try to accomplish an act of charity at least once a week. I have a list of ideas and I'll let Beth pick what she wants to do that week- baking treats for our local firefighters or police, giving away a toy or food to someone in need, visiting the elderly, praying for the sick, etc. I want to instill in my children a sense of gratefulness and servitude!

On a similar train of thought, Ryan and I cleaned out our play room today. We have too many toys. We got rid of a few things and put a big chunk of the toys in a box so we can rotate them every month or so. We did this while Beth and Luke were napping, and they didn't notice anything was missing this afternoon! I'd like to get back to the day when I wanted very few, high-quality toys, where everything has a place and everything is played with then put away. Our books are not respected, and puzzle pieces are ruined. Definitely an indication that there's just too much.

I also had to put away a big chunk of Jack's clothing today, this is the second time! It's odd how every brand of clothing fits Jack differently- Gerber onesies are particularly small, Jack's already in 6-9 months! Most of what fits him is at least size 3 months, but those are getting tight. I hardly have anything for him to wear because everything I had for Luke at this age has long sleeves and long pants, and it's definitely too hot to put him in those outfits. I have an appointment with my midwife on Tuesday for my 6-week checkup, so we'll weigh Jack then to see just how big this boy is!

i'm not sure what's going on here, but they seemed to be having fun!

Along the Alphabet Path- "D" and "E" week

We took a huge break from our "school" since we've moved, it's been hard for me to get back into the flow of things! I think, for the most part, that I have my act together now. I've found that Beth is ready to work at a slightly quicker pace now, and I had been taking things very slowly for my own ease and convenience. But she is so ready to learn, and she needs the challenge. If I don't challenge her enough during the day, she's reminds me of a bored puppy- she's destructive and clearly needs the mental stimulation!

For "D" week, we checked out lots of library books about Dancing, St. Dominic, and Dump Trucks (for Luke too!). We also checked out several books by Tomie dePaola. He is one of our favorite authors! She practiced tracing upper and lower case D in a shallow pan full of flour (note to self: do this outside next time!), colored on some coloring pages (St. Dominic, daisies, dolphins, dinosaurs) and of course we had donuts after mass! I wish I'd had my camera for that, as Beth has a very unique way of eating her donuts... I'll have to catch that some other time!

St. Dominic with baby Jesus and Mary

We continue to listen to the Flower Fairy CD every day, usually several times a day as the kids both love dancing to the sweet music. There's lots of dancing in our house. :-) Beth also has a couple of workbooks from Wal-Mart that she loves, she practices writing her letters, matching pictures, drawing lines and following mazes.

For "E" week, I wasn't too prepared to go to the library and wasn't impressed with the books that I could find while the kids were running around like crazy heathens. We checked out two Ella the Elegant books (mostly cute, not my favorites), and other books on elephants, exercise, and electricity. Yesterday we talked a lot about exercising and I showed Beth some stretches...Not that I can do much right now, I certainly can't even get close to touching my toes! We also talked about St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Beth also did a few related coloring pages.

I wasn't too excited about our "E" week activities, so I'm hoping to prepare better for "F" week. I'm hoping to take a trip to a local fire station- last time we went (gosh, a year ago!) Beth had so much fun but Luke was too little to enjoy it. Given Luke's obsession with trucks, I think he'll like it a lot better this time!

Science experiement

We studied birds a couple of weeks ago and learned about some birds commonly found in our area, and now Beth has been very interested in birdwatching. Every morning at breakfast we open our blinds and look outside to see what birds we can identify- the usual ones we see are cardinals, robins, mockingbirds, doves, and some little brown birds. Since Beth doesn't like to eat crusts on her bread, we've been saving them in a bowl and letting them dry out, and on Saturday Daddy helped her get them ready for the birds. Beth crushed them up then threw them out on our back porch. Unfortunately the huge flock of robins in our yard on Sunday morning didn't notice them, so the crumbs are still sitting out on our patio! But Beth anxiously waits for the birds to come eat them- maybe next time we'll just save them up for some ducks and turtles at a pond!

making a "tent" with daddy

"B" week

Beth and I finished up our "B" week yesterday with a couple of coloring pages and a lesson on butterflies. We watched a of video on youtube about how butterflies are born as caterpillars (I turned off the sound and narrated it to her level), and we watched another video of a butterfly actually coming out of his cocoon. She was very intrigued! Afterward she had a coloring page on the process. We turned in all of our "B" books to the library (with a few new favorites- she loved the rhyming bear books by Karma Wilson) but checked out the last one to come in- Owl Babies. I don't know if it's the way this book is published or if it's just the copy I reserved online, but this book is HUGE. It's probably the biggest book we've ever had; when it's opened, it's probably 3 feet across! Beth loves the book, she says she likes the owl Sarah the best, but I think she just loves the obnoxious size of the book!

luke loves to color too!

Last week we made banana bread, Beth had a difficult time mashing the bananas but loved adding in all the other ingredients. The girl loves to cook, I can't wait until she's older and can make dinner for us!