Planting

 
Hello, dear friends and family.  I finally worked on my front flower beds.  I yanked out the ancient, overgrown, nasty monkey grass which looked like two giant caterpillars and housed the largest grass spider I've ever seen in real life.  And ants.  So many ants. 

I planted lantana and nandina.  I've got some liriope coming from Mom tomorrow, and I have plans for coreopsis, sweet potato, and purple cone flower.  These are easy, drought/disease tolerant plants that should be hard for me to kill.  And that's important. 

Now, if I'll only remember to keep watering them.  I might have to put it in Google Calendar and schedule repeating reminders that show up in my email.  I have no problem remembering to get online. 

Multiplication Help

I've been thinking this week that I'm so glad I don't have to homeschool on my own.  I'm happy that there are people in the world who are putting curriculum together, or blogging about their unique teaching styles, or coming up with fun ways for kids to learn.  I'm very thankful to know that all the ideas I need are only a click away!

Case in point:  For the last year I've hated the fact that I'm stumped when it comes to teaching my boys the times tables.  Disciplined, consistent repetition of facts is NOT my strong suit.  I'm a go-with-the-flow chick (when I'm not Anxiety Girl), and it's difficult enough to get our regular work done every day with all of life's many distractions.  So, I put on my aforementioned Anxiety Girl cape and stressed about it forever, while trying out my own ways of practicing the facts that simply didn't work for me or my kids.

Then, I recently overheard a friend mention a music cd with multiplication songs on it, and that bit of info stuck with me.  After a little research, I discovered that there are many options for help with teaching the times tables.  There are games, video games, cds, and dvds of all kinds!  I should have thought of that before, but you just don't know what you don't know, ya know? 

The two dvds that I'm planning to buy are:

Link: Times Tales

Link: Schoolhouse Rock

(There's also regular Schoolhouse Rock, which we use for grammar reinforcement.)







I haven't decided on games, yet, but these look good: 

Link: Zoom

Link: Math Games

I haven't found too many online math games that my kids like.  But Learning Planet is fun, and Xtra Math isn't horrible.  If anyone has ideas for online math games, please email them or post in the comments section.  (Thank you!) 

Homeschooling is hard sometimes.  I say take every opportunity to make it easier on yourself, and more enjoyable for your kids.  YES, require them to work hard and meet higher standards, but if you can disguise that as FUN, all the better.  

Summer School

In keeping with my own personal weirdness... and letting that overflow into my daily life... we are starting school back up again in a week.  Yes, we're "supposed" to be on summer break, but because the weather is SO much nicer in April and May, we took a long spring break instead, with Branson vacation included.  I know for sure that we'll school through June and July, amid tons of summer fun and Camp Grandma, and I'm considering schooling through August (and maybe September), then taking a month-long Fall break when the weather cools back down. 

Just because we can. 

I feel so powerful! 

So, here's what we'll be studying starting June 4th.  It's all new material... except Math.  We're continuing Math where we left off in April. 

Mystery of History, Volume 1:  A chronological study that weaves world and bible history together (with geography included), volume 1 begins with Biblical creation and ends with the birth of Christ... and includes great hands-on activities for three age levels!       

Real Science-4-Kids, Chemistry Pre-level 1:  This will only take around 10 weeks to complete, and we can move on to the next set.  It's just a basic introduction to atoms, molecules, chemical reactions, etc., with experiments for reinforcement.   

Learning Language Arts through Literature:  I chose this because it's "a fully integrated language arts program that teaches grammar, reading, spelling, vocabulary, writing mechanics, creative writing, thinking skills and more," and it's literature based.  It's everything I need in one place... except for the readers, which I'll have to get at the library.

We're also supplementing with Sonlight's Grammar Ace package because it comes with a Schoolhouse Rock dvd... couldn't pass it up!

Sonlight's K-level Language Arts and Read-alouds for Sarah... because we have it and that's what I used to teach the boys to read.  She'll move on to something else next year. 

Teaching Textbooks Math:  still.  So far so good.  (Tip: My kinesthetic learner definitely needs to work with me in the workbook before doing the computer lessons.  Otherwise, he forgets a lot.  TT is very auditory/visual.  I'm curious to see how my visual learner does with it this year.)

Sarah will use Horizons Math K, mostly at her own pace.  We sat down with it one day and finished at least 5 lessons. She's so excited! 

Bible:  Cool Devotions for Boys: Gotta Have God, and Five-Minute Devotions for Children.  Also, during dinner we'll use the Kids' Book of Devotions, by Mark Littleton. I haven't found a real Bible program I like for memorization and bible study.  Still looking...

So, friends and family, that's what we'll be up to this summer when we're not playing with friends or swimming in the neighbor's pool.  Looking forward to a great summer session!

Blessing Our Children

Numbers 6:24-26

A month or so ago Steve and I decided we should have a special blessing "ceremony" for our kids in which we would pray for them individually and tell them all the reasons why we love them.   Last week we decided to first have the kids take turns being the special person at dinner time.  I chose Seth to take the first turn, and he was so excited about it!  After praying a blessing over him and the meal, each family member took a few minutes to tell Seth what we love about him.  Among other things, we all mentioned his sweet spirit, smart ideas, and slapstick humor.  His love for reading is unparalleled in our home.  His ability to make anything into a plane, spaceship, or gun is uncanny.  Sarah wished Seth was a glass of water so she could drink him.  Not sure what that means exactly, but it was cute.  You should have seen the glow on Seth's face while he received his blessing.  It lit up the room. 

Next was Sarah's turn.  She gobbled up all the positive attention she received from her parents and siblings, and she acted out every compliment showered upon her.  In our home, Sarah is known for her great dancing, lovely singing of her unique songs, super pretending skills, and her incredible snuggle-ability.  Caleb had quite a bit to say about Sarah, while Seth thought up two things.  (He's a little less verbal than some members of our family... and she's a bit of a five-years-younger thorny thorn for him these days.)  Still, Sarah felt loved.  You could tell by the sweet smile and sparkly eyes. 

Last night was Caleb's turn.  He had been waiting and waiting... very patiently... to hear the word treasures we all had for him.  His spirit soared as we praised him for his gifts of comedy and storytelling, applauded his genius building skills, and admired his artistic ability.  He also reenacted every compliment he received.  Unlike Sarah's, however, his interpretations were more abstract... and hilarious.  After a slow start, Seth's praise of Caleb was virtually unstoppable.  Literally.  Sarah was very focused on his cool clothing... and occasional lack thereof.  You know boys.  You just can't keep 'em dressed for very long.

I can see us easily getting addicted to this blessing our children thing.  Seeing their faces light up and knowing their little hearts are flying high with love, acceptance, and admiration is such an amazing experience for a parent. 

The kids want Steve and me to have turns, and it's important to them that we do, so our turns will be this week.  We're both looking forward to receiving our "special blessings" from them... to allow them to feed our spirits as we have fed theirs.  Just thinking about our blessing times makes me want to go scrunch up and kiss their beautiful little munchkin faces.  Guess I'll go do that now.  Carpe diem.

Homemade Laundry Soap

I jumped on the bandwagon and made my own laundry soap.  It was super easy to make (though a little messy), and so far it seems to work just as well as Tide.  The first batch, which costs around $12 plus the cost of a 5-gallon bucket with lid, makes 5 gallons of concentrate... 10 gallons of laundry soap after it's all said and done.  I have enough of two out of three ingredients to make at least 4 or 5 more batches, so those will only cost around $4 (or less) each (the cost of the 3rd ingredient... a soap bar.) 

I found all the ingredients at Wal-mart, but they are also available at Ace Hardware or online. 

A 100 oz. jug of Tide costs around $12 each... the recipe I used makes 1,280 ounces. That's a huge savings!  (Plus, the homemade version has the added benefit of being mostly all-natural and easier on clothes and skin.)

I used the Duggar's Liquid Laundry Soap recipe.  You can use the Fels Naptha "laundry soap" bar like they recommend, or you can use any other type of soap bar... Ivory, Pure & Natural, etc.  Let me know if you decide to try it!

We love workboxes!

"Workboxes" is a system of homeschooling which allows children to be more independent in their daily studies.  The originator of this system is Sue Patrick, and her ideas have become increasingly popular with homeschoolers across the U.S.  Because the full system is very detailed and in-depth, and requires a great amount of prep work for the teaching parent, it's not a good fit for our family.  However, there is one part we absolutely love!

This.  This is the part we love.

Above is a picture of our workbox "towers."  From left to right, they belong to Seth, Caleb, and Sarah.  In the close up pictures below, you can see that there are numbers stuck to the front of the drawers with Velcro.  When a child finishes his first drawer, he takes the number off the front of the drawer and puts it on the card that sits on top of the tower.  

This is the card that sits on top of Seth's tower.

The next set of pictures shows examples of what things are in the drawers.  The kids are not allowed to take a sticker off of a drawer, marking it "finished," until all books and supplies are back in the drawer. 

 

Below is a tower in progress.  When all the boxes are done, school is done for the day.  No more questions and worries about when we'll be done.  Now everyone knows!

Three down, three to go!

In order to keep the kids motivated to use the workboxes, I also have activity cards that say, "15 minutes on computer," "20 minutes on Wii Fit or Outdoor Challenge," and "Game of your choice with Mom."  Next week I will add other games and surprises for the kids.  My goal is to have a good balance of school work, chores, and fun stuff in our boxes.  So far, so good.

Best upside?  Besides the organization and independent work, the best upside is having everything we need for projects or crafts right in the drawer waiting for us.  No more searching around at the last minute for glue or an extra pair of scissors.  SO time-saving! 

Oh, and this serene homeschool moment is all thanks to workboxes...

 

And so are these happy munchkin faces...

Here's the down side... more prep work for Mom.  In order for this to work properly and be successful, I have to reload the boxes every afternoon or evening.  I can see now that I need to prep everything on the weekends so I can reload them quickly.  Otherwise, it's too time-consuming. 

The parts of the workbox system that we are leaving out include making "centers" (think Science Fair tri-fold displays) to teach concepts or info to the kids.  That would take more time, work, energy, and money than I'm willing or able to give at this time in life... or ever.  Maybe if I could come up with smaller-scale ideas...

Anyway, that's our current gig.  Thanks for reading... and leaving a comment... *hint hint*

Back to Co-op!

Today was the boys' first day back to co-op, and we were all ever so glad to be back!!  They were very happy to see their friends and to get to learn and play with them.  In art class they learned about pointillism and made their own pointillist butterfly pictures with tempera paint and Q-tips...
 

They actually drew and painted half of the butterflies, then folded the paper and pressed on it to make the other half.  Brilliant idea!
 
In Zoology class, the kids learned about insects.  They learned that insects have 3 main body parts, six legs, compound eyes, and an exoskeleton.  For an experiment, the kids tried to drown a cricket, but found out that crickets can close up all their air holes and survive after at least 5 minutes under water!  As a bonus, my kids got to bring home the experiment subjects as PETS!! 

The three containers above house three different crickets... Hopper, Hoppy, and Hoppy McHopperson.  The kids brought all three home in one jar, but decided they each needed to make their own habitats.  We looked up what crickets eat... which just happens to be everything (they're omnivorous)... and the kids put these together.  The only thing I did was punch the air holes and fill up little cricket-sized water bowls.  The dirt, grass, and paper clippings are providing nourishment for the little buggers.  The crickets seem to be doing well, but Caleb accidentally ripped one of the back legs off of his, so we're not sure how long it will survive.

I ended up filling in for another mom who was sick, so I stayed at co-op all day and taught two classes on conflict resolution for kids... based on The Young Peacemaker, by Corlette Sande.  I got to sit in a circle with two groups of around 12 kids and chat with them about different reasons and ways to make "a respectful appeal."  The kids are smart and funny... and silly (right up my alley)... and we had great discussions! 

Where was Sarah, you ask?  Well, little "Sarah May" spent the entire day alone with Grandma.  And there's no telling what kind of trouble those two got into!

"What happens at Grandma's STAYS at Grandma's!!"