Wednesday we made a quick trip to the library. I was returning a few books, gathering books for more units, and just getting out of the house with the kids! Grandma came along too, so it was an easy trip for me, less kid chasing. The kids also got new quiet time books, though only a few. BigGirl got three in the Read-It! Readers series again (Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Little Red Hen). AcrobatBoy only wanted one(Franklin the Turtle and the Thunderstorm). TagalongGirl also wanted only one(Barnyard Banter).
I already got a ton of books last time on the human body and the 5 senses. I flipped through them and found that there were a few I really didn't like or we wouldn't use. Those went back today. The human body books are for BigGirl's January unit study. The preschoolers will be tagging along for the activities when they are interested. BUT we're starting strictly preschool unit studies too. These are centered around a letter of the alphabet each week. My goal is to find a storybook to go with the topic the kids pick. TagalongGirl and AcrobatBoy are taking turns picking topics every other week. For January our letters with their topics are supposed to be:
Mm - moose - with the book If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff as our jumping off point.
Ii - igloo - with the book The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett as our jumping off point. (This is a cute Goldilocks and the three bears retelling set in the arctic with a polar bear family who lives in an igloo)
Tt - trains - I don't know the story yet.
Dd - dinosaurs - again, not sure of the story yet. Maybe Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff.
To get those units prepared I got books on moose, polar bears, arctic life, igloos, and one or two for dinosaurs and trains. Dd and Tt will be later in the month, so when we return moose books we'll get more for those topics.
I have to say I'm excited to do this. It is something I've felt I really want to do. Even though it means more work for me in some ways(preparing two unit studies at a time). And even though the preschoolers tag along in many ways with BigGirl's unit studies, I've wanted to offer them something just their size. Another neat perk this will add to our homeschool is that BigGirl will probably learn things right alongside them. I won't have to plan a big unit for her on each topic, she can just explore these topics for fun.
Other things that are changing with homeschool for January:
- The preschoolers will start using Saxon Math K. This is really for AcrobatBoy. He already shows his predisposition to thinking mathematically. If you aren't familiar with Saxon Math K, it is ALL hands on, playing with manipulatives to explore math concepts. I'm going to shoot for two lessons a week, with the days in between left to continue exploring the newest concepts and materials. TagalongGirl will do just what her nickname implies and tag along, but I don't expect her to grasp it all. She just turned three this month! She'll have fun playing anyway.
- BigGirl will begin journal writing. This is 10 minutes of writing about her day, her thoughts, a story, a note to her cousins, anything. She is really resistant to writing stories thanks to her perfectionist nature. It drives her bonkers to write something, reread it, and KNOW it is spelled wrong but not know exactly how to fix it. The whole goal with this journal time is to write without worrying about spelling. We've talked about it and she's willing. I'll be praying to find ways to make this work. Maybe pretty paper or letting her decorate the paper after she's written?
- BigGirl will also begin drawing with a book series called Draw Write Now every other day or so. This eight book series has topics ranging from polar animals to American landmarks. It is a neat series that has simple, step by step drawing instructions for the basic picture, but shows a completed drawing with a background and more to spark your ideas. Each has a few sentences underneath to copy for handwriting, but we're skipping that! Here is a link to the official website for the Draw Write Now books, though I got them much cheaper on Amazon.
- We'll start using our circle time board! This will be really fun. At the moment I'm thinking it will happen in the morning after we eat breakfast and before we head upstairs for getting dressed and doing chores. That may change as we see how long it takes and decide if we want it at a different part of our day.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Last Day of the Year
Today is that favorite of all listmakers, goalsetters, and planners, New Year's Eve! It is the last day to accomplish all those things you said you would do "this year". It is a day to see just what you DIDN'T do this year, and decide if that needs to be fixed in the year to come or if it really didn't matter anyway!
Here are some things I DID accomplish in 2008:
- Planted and cared for our first garden!
- Stayed out of debt.
- Went camping with the family to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant - with a 7 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, 10 month old, daddy, grandma, grandpa, and my pregnant self! In a very HOT July. I loved it!
- Got pregnant again - horray! Another blessing is coming.
- Read my scriptures more days than I missed. I definitely still missed days, but it was better than the year before.
- Played outside with my children more.
- Survived a week with no power.
- Increased our food storage.
- Cooked with our food storage regularly - even the wheat!
- Homeschooled and LOVED it! What a blessing this has been to our family. We have spent more time together as a family living and learning that the average public school family gets to. - I have seen my oldest become fluent in reading, fluent enough that she will read books to her siblings, that she can read the scriptures during family scripture study, and can read several books in an hour of quiet time.
- I have seen the light in my children's eyes as they have learned about God's creations, be it a kitten, a caterpillar, a plant THEY grew in the garden, or how to make the letter A.
- I have watched another baby grow from 2 months old last January to a walking, climbing, sweetheart who loves his siblings.
- I have four children who are still innocent, who have been sheltered and allowed to be children. They have not been exposed to the evils and wickedness of the world day in and day out.
- I have watched as each child has grown and developed - sometimes in surprising ways!
- I have so many more blessings that have come this year, but that list gives you a peek.
Here are some things I did NOT accomplish in 2008:
- Losing all that baby weight! Hahaha. I guess that's okay, since it is getting me another little baby soon.
- Reading my scriptures every day.
- Being patient with my children and husband all the time. Nope, definitely failed this one, but I'm trying.
- Worried less.
- Made exercise a regular habit.
- Practiced playing piano, something I really need to do as my skills are VERY limited.
- Complained less.
- Learned to sew with a sewing machine. The machine I have hates me. Really, it does.
- Made a rotating meal plan.
For the year of 2009 I am doing things a little differently. I am only setting goals for 6 months. Every year in June and December I go through these overwhelming urges to plan and set goals, so why fight it this year? Things can change a lot in 6 months. I know for a fact that where I am right now is totally different than the situation I'll be in in 3 months. Now I have 4 children who are at least all walking and relatively easy. By June I will have 5 children. And face it, while babies are a blessing, they also throw the whole family for a loop as we learn to live with a little one who cannot meet ANY of their own needs. The schedule that works today (wonderfully) will change at least twice in 6 months. Probably more. The homeschooling that we are doing now will be drawing to a close for another year in June. It will be garden time again!
Tonight I will commit my goals for 2009 to paper. I will make a nice copy of our new schedule that has been tweaked for a new year. And sometime in the next few days I will share them here.
But right now I have something more important to do - go be a mommy! My little ones are asking for a snack and at our house we love baking treats, so we're off to the kitchen for some fun and mess making! I'm voting for homemade pretzels or cookies - maybe both!
Here are some things I DID accomplish in 2008:
- Planted and cared for our first garden!
- Stayed out of debt.
- Went camping with the family to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant - with a 7 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, 10 month old, daddy, grandma, grandpa, and my pregnant self! In a very HOT July. I loved it!
- Got pregnant again - horray! Another blessing is coming.
- Read my scriptures more days than I missed. I definitely still missed days, but it was better than the year before.
- Played outside with my children more.
- Survived a week with no power.
- Increased our food storage.
- Cooked with our food storage regularly - even the wheat!
- Homeschooled and LOVED it! What a blessing this has been to our family. We have spent more time together as a family living and learning that the average public school family gets to. - I have seen my oldest become fluent in reading, fluent enough that she will read books to her siblings, that she can read the scriptures during family scripture study, and can read several books in an hour of quiet time.
- I have seen the light in my children's eyes as they have learned about God's creations, be it a kitten, a caterpillar, a plant THEY grew in the garden, or how to make the letter A.
- I have watched another baby grow from 2 months old last January to a walking, climbing, sweetheart who loves his siblings.
- I have four children who are still innocent, who have been sheltered and allowed to be children. They have not been exposed to the evils and wickedness of the world day in and day out.
- I have watched as each child has grown and developed - sometimes in surprising ways!
- I have so many more blessings that have come this year, but that list gives you a peek.
Here are some things I did NOT accomplish in 2008:
- Losing all that baby weight! Hahaha. I guess that's okay, since it is getting me another little baby soon.
- Reading my scriptures every day.
- Being patient with my children and husband all the time. Nope, definitely failed this one, but I'm trying.
- Worried less.
- Made exercise a regular habit.
- Practiced playing piano, something I really need to do as my skills are VERY limited.
- Complained less.
- Learned to sew with a sewing machine. The machine I have hates me. Really, it does.
- Made a rotating meal plan.
For the year of 2009 I am doing things a little differently. I am only setting goals for 6 months. Every year in June and December I go through these overwhelming urges to plan and set goals, so why fight it this year? Things can change a lot in 6 months. I know for a fact that where I am right now is totally different than the situation I'll be in in 3 months. Now I have 4 children who are at least all walking and relatively easy. By June I will have 5 children. And face it, while babies are a blessing, they also throw the whole family for a loop as we learn to live with a little one who cannot meet ANY of their own needs. The schedule that works today (wonderfully) will change at least twice in 6 months. Probably more. The homeschooling that we are doing now will be drawing to a close for another year in June. It will be garden time again!
Tonight I will commit my goals for 2009 to paper. I will make a nice copy of our new schedule that has been tweaked for a new year. And sometime in the next few days I will share them here.
But right now I have something more important to do - go be a mommy! My little ones are asking for a snack and at our house we love baking treats, so we're off to the kitchen for some fun and mess making! I'm voting for homemade pretzels or cookies - maybe both!
Monday, December 29, 2008
Portable Circle Time Board Ready!
I can't believe it! I mentioned that one project I was hoping to work on over the Christmas break was making a circle time board. (Here is that post.)
Basic information here: I bought a tri fold board at WalMart for less than $4.00. While I thought about covering it with contact paper, in the end I just skipped that. All the pieces are attached to the board with velcro. The best part about that is I can "repurpose" the board anytime for new centers. I just make the new pieces fit on the existing velcro. I found a large box of the stickyback velcro (20 ft) at WalMart for $12.00. I have not used it all. For each piece on the board I either found a file online(like the weather flashcards and coin chart), or created one on my computer(like the titles, color blobs for color of the week, and shapes), or copied it from a reproducible book from the library(like the owl clock). The picture in the center is from a series of pictures my church sells, and I put a clear pocket sheet protector on the board with velcro to make changing pictures easy.
Sorry about the fuzzy picture here, my camera batteries died or I would have taken a better one! This is the top left of the board, our weather center. Each day the kids will velcro up the appropriate weather conditions (card on the left), the season (card on the right), and adjust the temperature (the blue box on the thermometer slides up and down).
For now this is the math center. The
hundreds number chart on top can be replaced with others. This one has skip count numbers colored for counting by 3's, which is what BigGirl is working on currently. 
I have actually done it! There are some areas still blank that I have plans for, as you will see in the pictures, but I was able to create, print, laminate, and cut out the main things I wanted ready for our January start. There are areas I mentioned in my original post that didn't make it on the board for now, like the geography center. I decided to postpone it for now. Here is a picture of the entire board, then I will explain more of what each area is for:
Basic information here: I bought a tri fold board at WalMart for less than $4.00. While I thought about covering it with contact paper, in the end I just skipped that. All the pieces are attached to the board with velcro. The best part about that is I can "repurpose" the board anytime for new centers. I just make the new pieces fit on the existing velcro. I found a large box of the stickyback velcro (20 ft) at WalMart for $12.00. I have not used it all. For each piece on the board I either found a file online(like the weather flashcards and coin chart), or created one on my computer(like the titles, color blobs for color of the week, and shapes), or copied it from a reproducible book from the library(like the owl clock). The picture in the center is from a series of pictures my church sells, and I put a clear pocket sheet protector on the board with velcro to make changing pictures easy.
Sorry about the fuzzy picture here, my camera batteries died or I would have taken a better one! This is the top left of the board, our weather center. Each day the kids will velcro up the appropriate weather conditions (card on the left), the season (card on the right), and adjust the temperature (the blue box on the thermometer slides up and down).
Underneath this is a large blank area to add another center at a later date, or to expand the math center that is further down if we want.
For now this is the math center. The
hundreds number chart on top can be replaced with others. This one has skip count numbers colored for counting by 3's, which is what BigGirl is working on currently. Below that is a coin chart I found online a cut apart. The kids can take off all of the coins, mix them up, an find the ones that go together.
Ultimately underneath this I would love a pocket to toss random amounts of change for BigGirl to count and trade in at the "bank" for the fewest coins possible.
Skipping to the far right flap of the circle time board the only thing to see right now is our Professor Owl clock with movable hands. The kids will be able to set the clock for the current time, for a time when something will be happening, and so on.
Above this is all blank. I hope to make a Unit Study Center on the rest of the flap. It would have pictures, facts, and things that went with our current unit study. I'll work on this more later.
This is the top center of the board. It is our scripture center. On the left is the theme and scripture for Primary for the year, and the current month. The kids will be reading and repeating these scriptures every day during the month. Being kids, they will probably have them memorized by the end of the first week or two, but it may take mommy a little longer!
On the right is our Articles of Faith corner. Our church has 13 Articles of Faith, a great summary of what we believe. BigGirl is working on memorizing them (she knows 6 I think right now). I found these neat picture clue cards online. For example, the one shown is for the 4th article of faith, which reads "We believe the first principles and ordinances (1st P & O in the picture) of the gospel are First, Faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ(picture of Jesus with #1); Second, repentance(picture of boy praying with #2); Third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins(picture of person being baptized with a #3); Fourth, the Laying on of Hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost(picture of child being confirmed with #4). Someone came up with these picture cards and they are wonderful! I will post the link later for those who are interested.
This is another picture of the center of the board. At the top you can see the scripture center. We also put a sheet protector up that will hold pictures of scripture stories for us, and we'll focus on a different story each week.
Under that is the Preschool Center. Each week AcrobatBoy and TagalongGirl will have a letter, number, shape, and color focus. For the first week of January it will be the letter M, color brown, number 5, and shape square. This all goes with their unit study on If You Give a Moose a Muffin. They get to change these each week, learn to pick out the number each morning from a group I hand them, or pick out the uppercase and lowercase letter from a group I hand them, etc.
Under that is the daily calendar stuff where the kids can change the day of the week, month, date, and year as needed.
All in all it turned out better than I expected. The kids watched all day as I cut, they helped laminate, watched me cut some more, and are begging to use our circle time board. Of course I had great fun telling them "Nope, not until we're done with break and start back to homeschool."
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit
Hi everyone! I got a great book for Christmas and just finished reading it for the first time through. I LOVED it!It is Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell and you can find it on their website here for $7.00.
Teri is also the author of Managers of Their Homes, a scheduling book for homeschoolers I LOVE. You can read our family's experiences with that book if you click on our label "MOTH" in the sidebar.
I learned so much from this new book and it gave me even more to think and pray about for my life.
Here are the chapter titles with a quick note by me about each:
1. A Meek and Quiet Spirit - Just what is a meek and quiet spirit? What are my m/q spirit robbers?
2. Undergirding - What is the foundation we need? Prayer and time with the Lord every day. If we are too busy to read our scriptures and pray then we are too busy. I thought to myself how often my prayers only go up when I'm needing help, like an SOS signal...
3. Fear and Worry - She talks about how we pray about something, like homeschooling or a particular curriculum or plan and get the green light. Then we are shocked and begin to fear and worry when we proceed and hit challenges. She mentions that while you were praying about which spelling curriculum to use with a certain child because you wanted them to learn to spell, God may have other lessons in mind for that child when they are using that curriculum, like learning persistence and patience. The Lord it the teacher and I need to stop worrying about "my lessons" and let Him teach "His lessons". Discusses taking captive our thoughts of worry and fear (2 Corinthians 10:5).
4. Disorganization - What areas bug you in your home and rob you of your meek and quiet spirit? Make a list and set aside 30 minutes a day to work on those areas you have just been putting up with and getting irritated by.
5. Anger - Oh I needed this one! Talks about why anger has no place in our heart and with our loved ones, and that anger is a choice. For example, how often do can you be in the middle of yelling at the kids when the phone rings and you answer with a calm and cheerful voice like nothing is going on? Why do those we love most get our worst? One idea I loved was making an If/Then chart for kids misbehavior. You choose appropriate consequences ahead of time when you are not having a bad day and then as misbehavior happens you take the child to the chart for their consequence, you are no longer acting in anger or revenge for being inconvenienced in needing to discipline the child.
6. Hard Work and Dying to Self - Talks about the illusion of needing more "me time" and of how our upbringing may have given us unrealistic expectations as our mothers often lived in totally different circumstances. For example, did your mom homeschool or have 6 hours with no children in which to do housework and spend time by herself? What about having a working mom? A homeschooling mom has a different life so what worked for your mom is not what will work for you. But this life is a choice we have made, and we can accept the busyness and less "me time" that goes with it.
7. Depression - This is a good chapter on dealing with depression and the effects it can have if you ignore it. I especially appreciated it as I tend to a bit of depression after babies are born with all those hormone changes, and it isn't something I'm looking forward to.
8. Gratitude, Contentment, and a Smile - about what it says...
9. Her wrap up chapter.
I loved this book and will be rereading it and putting some prayer and work into it. Each chapter has some application projects listed. There is also a study guide you can buy if you choose to. Once I get through this one again I'm mailing it to my homeschooling sister in Washington because it is that good!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Just another lazy afternoon
Right now my children are having fun and entertaining themselves. They have played happily all morning. We had a yummy lunch of homemade banana chocolate chip muffins. And then BabyBoy fell asleep. He looks so sweet and peaceful you would never suspect he kept me up past midnight last night! Unfortunately it is still another half hour until quiet time so the other children are not ready to lay down and give mommy a chance to nap. But I'm counting down the minutes!
Instead, this is what the other three are doing. It is puzzle time! We keep all the puzzles upstairs under the boys' bunkbed in that nice underbed storage tub. As you can see along the wall we keep pieces in labeled bags. So each bag has pieces for 1-3 puzzles. If you flip the puzzle boards over you will find each has been labeled to match the bags so the kids can find the right boards. It is a wonderful thing! If I were to take another picture right now you would see they have switched puzzles several times. The rule is to put away the pieces in their bag and stack the set neatly along the wall before grabbing another set. So far, it's going great!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Just a Baby - Merry Christmas
Tonight I have been thinking about Christmas. It is nearly here. My children are growing more excited with each day we have added a figure to the nativity scene of our advent calendar. There are only two left in the numbered pockets - a donkey and the baby Jesus in a manger. They are ready to celebrate Jesus' birthday, to spend time with family, to celebrate.
But as I sat here tonight in my rather pregnant state my mind turned from thoughts of Jesus' birthday to thoughts of His birth. I have four beautiful children. Another little boy will join our family in 10 weeks or so. I'm not sure I am ready for that, but it is becoming more of a reality as I feel the stronger kicks, as little Oliver runs out of room in there. I still remember the experience of holding each of my sweet babies in my arms moments after their birth. They were messy but beautiful. They were so tiny and perfect.
I also remember the moments leading up to each birth. The "labor" part. It hurts. It is overwhelming. But then I think of my surroundings. I have always had a clean room, a soft bed, a midwife at the hospital. What must it have been like for Mary? To have travelled so far and been so uncomfortable, only to arrive in a city where there was no room to stay. Nowhere. To labor in a stable, surrounded by the straw, the animals, the dirt, the smells. There was no soft, clean bed. It was her first birth and she was not even able to be at home with her mother and other women of her family to help her.
And yet the moment He was born I know she felt those same feelings I've had, the love, the awe, the joy. Holding a precious newborn baby for the first time. Wondering what His life would be like, knowing that He was the Son of God.
I love the picture at the top of this post. It is by the artist Liz Lemon Swindle. It is one of my favorite paintings of Christmas because this is the picture that shows what happened on that first Christmas, a mother snuggled her new little baby, feeling the soft skin, smelling that newborn baby smell. This is what I picture when I think of Christmas. Not the presents. Not the wise men, the stable, the shepherds. Just a baby and his mommy.
Praise be to God for the gift of his son!
Friday, December 19, 2008
Finished Week and Unit
Today we finished up our American Revolution unit! Horray! Before I get to pictures of the lapbook BigGirl did I'll go ahead and report what we did in homeschool today. 
The preschoolers read an X, Y, Z book with mommy, played Memory with picture cards, practiced the number 5, cut with scissors, and colored pictures.
BabyBoy especially enjoyed the bookshelves this morning so we read a few books and picked up lots more that he pulled down.
BabyBoy especially enjoyed the bookshelves this morning so we read a few books and picked up lots more that he pulled down.
BigGirl did her written spelling test, a page in her grammar notebook on classifying words, a math game, and of course finished her lapbook! Horray! The first picture is one where BigGirl is working on putting the lapbook together, TagalongGirl is still cutting with scissors, and AcrobatBoy has moved on to coloring two pictures of George Washington (crossing the Delaware and praying at Valley Forge). BabyBoy was napping by this point in the day.
Here is the cover of the finished lapbook. The map is of the 13 colonies(we printed it), and the flag was drawn by BigGirl:
For this lapbook we decided to put an extension in instead of making a double lapbook, so the blue page here is cardstock we taped inside so it folds out like a large flap. Here is the inside without opening that blue extension:
Here are the insides of those minibooks:
Here is the whole lapbook opened out. You can see we were able to use the back of the extension too:
And here are the insides of those minibooks:
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Updating the week again
I didn't get a chance to post an update of our week yesterday so here is one for yesterday and this morning:
Yesterday we got done the same general things as Tuesday, spelling, cursive, math, numbers, we read the rest of the 5th Felicity book, read a lot of other books, and played some games. The other neat thing BigGirl did was some logic problems. You know, those ones where you have a table and a list of clues and you figure out who had what pet or who lives in what state, etc? She really really liked these. You can find some for kids free online if you search for "printable logic puzzle kids". Everyone also practiced sign language today. The preschooler's unplanned thing was a game of ABC Go Fish. AcrobatBoy asked to play - he even went so far as to get the cards out and bring them to me - who can refuse that? We played with about half the alphabet and you had to ask for the letter by it's sound, fun and painless practice.
Today has been productive already as well. BigGirl has practiced her spelling words and wrote them several times in cursive, as well as played a math facts game to practice her addition facts. As soon as she finished the preschoolers each wanted to do math, so they each played a round on the same board where for every right answer they hop their frog one space closer to the lilypad, but instead of solving math problems they had to recognize numbers, or count objects if they didn't recognize the number. The preschoolers also practiced tracing letters and drawing shapes on their dry erase boards.
Now the kids are off playing for a bit. Next on the plan is to read the last Felicity book, play with our Felicity paper dolls to act out the book, and do some more logic puzzles. This afternoon if BabyBoy takes a nice nap we'll put that Felicity lapbook together.
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It is nearly bedtime so I will type up a quick overview of the rest of the homeschool day now. We did read the 6th Felicity book in one sitting. It was a lot of fun and very exciting to realize we had finished! Everyone had favorite parts of the story to tell about and act out. The kids voted to do the lapbook tomorrow when we watch the Felicity movie, so we moved on to logic puzzles for BigGirl. I have to admit I'm awful at these! And the ones I found online don't come with the answers... probably not my smartest idea. The kids helped me make a batch of cinnamon rolls too. The preschoolers did some more number games too before everyone headed off to quiet time after lunch. They all stayed awake with their books today.
Daddy got home earlier than usual, before quiet time was even finished! Horray! We spent some time playing with the kids and eating cinnamon rolls. Then I got to go on a library trip all by myself. It was time to return all the books we've gotten out over the last month (we maxed out the 99 book limit on my card and had to check some items out on BigGirl's library card!). We said goodbye to all the American Revolution books, the books the kids have been enjoying for quiet time, and the random books I had grabbed that caught my eye.
I came home with another cart full of books. Many are for our January unit study on the Human Body. I found neat science experiment books to go along written from preschool level on up. There are books in there on the 5 senses, on digestion (I loved the title of one: I Have a Weird Brother Who Digested a Fly), on the brain, and more.
BigGirl's new quiet time books:
some of the "Read-it! Readers" she's loving (The Fox and the grapes, The Goose that laid the golden egg, The emperor's new clothes, Goldilocks and the 3 bears, The frog prince)
AcrobatBoy's new quiet time books:
Transformers The Movie Guide
Flight, a pop up book of aircraft
some of the human body books
TagalongGirl's new quiet time books:
two books on penguins
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
Poor BabyBoy doesn't get quiet time books because he naps, but he's got a few shelves of board books he's inherited, so he'll have plenty to look at during the day. And the big kids are always welcome to grab books from our own shelves too, so they will have some variety depending on their mood each day.
After I returned from the library I learned daddy taught the kids to play leapfrog while I was gone. Thankfully they didn't ask mommy to play along! I just don't think I can hop very well at this point in my pregnancy...
The rest of the evening was dinner, play, chores, laundry, snack, and so on. I'm so excited for tomorrow! It doesn't seem real that it is the middle of December and we are halfway through another homeschool year. We'll have a fun day finishing the lapbook, watching the movie, and a few odds and ends, and then I have two free weeks to work on our portable circle time and organize lessons and activities for January's unit! Yippee! I love planning! And listing! And READING!!
Yesterday we got done the same general things as Tuesday, spelling, cursive, math, numbers, we read the rest of the 5th Felicity book, read a lot of other books, and played some games. The other neat thing BigGirl did was some logic problems. You know, those ones where you have a table and a list of clues and you figure out who had what pet or who lives in what state, etc? She really really liked these. You can find some for kids free online if you search for "printable logic puzzle kids". Everyone also practiced sign language today. The preschooler's unplanned thing was a game of ABC Go Fish. AcrobatBoy asked to play - he even went so far as to get the cards out and bring them to me - who can refuse that? We played with about half the alphabet and you had to ask for the letter by it's sound, fun and painless practice.
Today has been productive already as well. BigGirl has practiced her spelling words and wrote them several times in cursive, as well as played a math facts game to practice her addition facts. As soon as she finished the preschoolers each wanted to do math, so they each played a round on the same board where for every right answer they hop their frog one space closer to the lilypad, but instead of solving math problems they had to recognize numbers, or count objects if they didn't recognize the number. The preschoolers also practiced tracing letters and drawing shapes on their dry erase boards.
Now the kids are off playing for a bit. Next on the plan is to read the last Felicity book, play with our Felicity paper dolls to act out the book, and do some more logic puzzles. This afternoon if BabyBoy takes a nice nap we'll put that Felicity lapbook together.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
It is nearly bedtime so I will type up a quick overview of the rest of the homeschool day now. We did read the 6th Felicity book in one sitting. It was a lot of fun and very exciting to realize we had finished! Everyone had favorite parts of the story to tell about and act out. The kids voted to do the lapbook tomorrow when we watch the Felicity movie, so we moved on to logic puzzles for BigGirl. I have to admit I'm awful at these! And the ones I found online don't come with the answers... probably not my smartest idea. The kids helped me make a batch of cinnamon rolls too. The preschoolers did some more number games too before everyone headed off to quiet time after lunch. They all stayed awake with their books today.
Daddy got home earlier than usual, before quiet time was even finished! Horray! We spent some time playing with the kids and eating cinnamon rolls. Then I got to go on a library trip all by myself. It was time to return all the books we've gotten out over the last month (we maxed out the 99 book limit on my card and had to check some items out on BigGirl's library card!). We said goodbye to all the American Revolution books, the books the kids have been enjoying for quiet time, and the random books I had grabbed that caught my eye.
I came home with another cart full of books. Many are for our January unit study on the Human Body. I found neat science experiment books to go along written from preschool level on up. There are books in there on the 5 senses, on digestion (I loved the title of one: I Have a Weird Brother Who Digested a Fly), on the brain, and more.
BigGirl's new quiet time books:
some of the "Read-it! Readers" she's loving (The Fox and the grapes, The Goose that laid the golden egg, The emperor's new clothes, Goldilocks and the 3 bears, The frog prince)
AcrobatBoy's new quiet time books:
Transformers The Movie Guide
Flight, a pop up book of aircraft
some of the human body books
TagalongGirl's new quiet time books:
two books on penguins
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
Poor BabyBoy doesn't get quiet time books because he naps, but he's got a few shelves of board books he's inherited, so he'll have plenty to look at during the day. And the big kids are always welcome to grab books from our own shelves too, so they will have some variety depending on their mood each day.
After I returned from the library I learned daddy taught the kids to play leapfrog while I was gone. Thankfully they didn't ask mommy to play along! I just don't think I can hop very well at this point in my pregnancy...
The rest of the evening was dinner, play, chores, laundry, snack, and so on. I'm so excited for tomorrow! It doesn't seem real that it is the middle of December and we are halfway through another homeschool year. We'll have a fun day finishing the lapbook, watching the movie, and a few odds and ends, and then I have two free weeks to work on our portable circle time and organize lessons and activities for January's unit! Yippee! I love planning! And listing! And READING!!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Today's Homeschool Report
I thought I would report on how homeschool went today to go along with my posted plans, so here is what we did today:
BabyBoy - I did read books to him and everyone played with him. We also talked a lot today, and he jabbered right along. He was in a relatively good mood considering he is in the middle of a double ear infection and a bout of pinkeye(which we are still waiting on insurance approval for medicine for the pinkeye - long, frustrating story).
TagalongGirl and AcrobatBoy- both focused on the number 3 today, one of the numbers neither of them recognize. I worked with them individually today, playing several of the games I mentioned in our plan post. In addition to that we all played Candyland together. That is never dull as taking turns is something we’re still learning to do nicely. Everyone did well counting spaces and remembering their colors, and nobody cried at the end over not being the winner. I’d call that a success. They also listened in to reading book 5 in Felicity, and colored in coloring books.
BigGirl- Today she practiced her spelling list (flag, United, States, America) in cursive. That’s a new thing, as up to now spelling has been in print. She did well and is proud of how nice her cursive is starting to look. Next on the day for her was some grammar. Today she worked with common nouns and proper nouns. First she went through a set of sentences underlining common nouns in blue and proper nouns in red. Then she went through a list of words where she had to write "common" next to common nouns and rewrite proper nouns with the proper capitalization. She did great! We practiced skip counting by 3's again and she did much better remembering what we had tried to memorize yesterday (3 to 33). I already mentioned reading book 5 in Felicity. What I didn’t mention is that BigGirl did some of the reading aloud. Yeah! She’s finally getting comfortable enough to read chapter books to us, instead of just a short paragraph here or there. It has been amazing watching her grow in her reading skills from the very beginning. Besides those activities she played Candyland with everyone and spent 45 minutes in quiet time reading books.
All in all it was a nice, productive day. I had hoped to get some work in on the Felicity lapbook with BigGirl, but we just didn’t get to it today. Maybe tomorrow. She only has a few pieces left to write information in before gluing it all together, so it will be done easily in a day.
BabyBoy - I did read books to him and everyone played with him. We also talked a lot today, and he jabbered right along. He was in a relatively good mood considering he is in the middle of a double ear infection and a bout of pinkeye(which we are still waiting on insurance approval for medicine for the pinkeye - long, frustrating story).
TagalongGirl and AcrobatBoy- both focused on the number 3 today, one of the numbers neither of them recognize. I worked with them individually today, playing several of the games I mentioned in our plan post. In addition to that we all played Candyland together. That is never dull as taking turns is something we’re still learning to do nicely. Everyone did well counting spaces and remembering their colors, and nobody cried at the end over not being the winner. I’d call that a success. They also listened in to reading book 5 in Felicity, and colored in coloring books.
BigGirl- Today she practiced her spelling list (flag, United, States, America) in cursive. That’s a new thing, as up to now spelling has been in print. She did well and is proud of how nice her cursive is starting to look. Next on the day for her was some grammar. Today she worked with common nouns and proper nouns. First she went through a set of sentences underlining common nouns in blue and proper nouns in red. Then she went through a list of words where she had to write "common" next to common nouns and rewrite proper nouns with the proper capitalization. She did great! We practiced skip counting by 3's again and she did much better remembering what we had tried to memorize yesterday (3 to 33). I already mentioned reading book 5 in Felicity. What I didn’t mention is that BigGirl did some of the reading aloud. Yeah! She’s finally getting comfortable enough to read chapter books to us, instead of just a short paragraph here or there. It has been amazing watching her grow in her reading skills from the very beginning. Besides those activities she played Candyland with everyone and spent 45 minutes in quiet time reading books.
All in all it was a nice, productive day. I had hoped to get some work in on the Felicity lapbook with BigGirl, but we just didn’t get to it today. Maybe tomorrow. She only has a few pieces left to write information in before gluing it all together, so it will be done easily in a day.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Plans for the Last Week of Homeschool 2008
I realized as I sat here this evening that this is our last week of official homeschool for the year. Next week we will go on Christmas Break and we won't start back until after January has begun! Wow! Half the school year has slipped away already. I decided to share our plans for the week and I will try to update you on what actually happens. If you are new to our blog let me say that this is not a typical week for us, but what week is typical in a homeschooling family?
The plan for BabyBoy, who is only 1 after all, is simply to play with him and read books to him and encourage him to talk to us. He has started babbling a lot, very deliberate, and I'm sure that he is talking to us, though I've not sorted out much of what he's saying. One that is pretty clear is "cat".
The plan for TalongGirl(age 3 now) and AcrobatBoy(age 4) is Number Week. Both of them can count to somewhere between 10 and 20. The goal for this week is to work on recognizing the numbers. We did a "pretest" of sorts and here is what they already recognize:
TagalongGirl - 1, 2, 6, 7, 10
AcrobatBoy - 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10
To work on this we'll be playing a lot of games. From the obvious, holding up a flashcard and having them name the number, to the slightly less obvious, like doing a number walk across the flashcards that have been lined up in a row. Other games: Bring Me- I'll show a number and they will bring me that many of an item, be it cars, linking cubes, or cheerios. Go Fish- we'll spread the flashcards out on the floor or table and I'll call out a number for each to find. Jumperoo- we jump however many times is needed for a card, or flip, or run to the table and back. Snacks will also be a fun time for counting (how many cookies? can you line up 8 goldfish? can you put the cheerios in the shape of a 3?)
BigGirl(age 7.5)'s week is one of finishing up odds and ends from our American Revolution unit study(like our lapbook and reading one last book), to doing some grammar worksheets, practicing new spelling words in cursive, learning to skip count by 3s, and reviewing all the addition facts she knows. We have several card games and even a bingo game for the math facts, so it should be fun review.
With all the kids we will also be continuing with reading the stories of Jesus' life and ministry. Today we got to the raising of Lazarus. And we'll do the fun things we've been doing like baking goodies, singing Christmas songs, playing together, and hoping for some snow to play in outside again!
We will see how it goes!
The plan for BabyBoy, who is only 1 after all, is simply to play with him and read books to him and encourage him to talk to us. He has started babbling a lot, very deliberate, and I'm sure that he is talking to us, though I've not sorted out much of what he's saying. One that is pretty clear is "cat".
The plan for TalongGirl(age 3 now) and AcrobatBoy(age 4) is Number Week. Both of them can count to somewhere between 10 and 20. The goal for this week is to work on recognizing the numbers. We did a "pretest" of sorts and here is what they already recognize:
TagalongGirl - 1, 2, 6, 7, 10
AcrobatBoy - 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10
To work on this we'll be playing a lot of games. From the obvious, holding up a flashcard and having them name the number, to the slightly less obvious, like doing a number walk across the flashcards that have been lined up in a row. Other games: Bring Me- I'll show a number and they will bring me that many of an item, be it cars, linking cubes, or cheerios. Go Fish- we'll spread the flashcards out on the floor or table and I'll call out a number for each to find. Jumperoo- we jump however many times is needed for a card, or flip, or run to the table and back. Snacks will also be a fun time for counting (how many cookies? can you line up 8 goldfish? can you put the cheerios in the shape of a 3?)
BigGirl(age 7.5)'s week is one of finishing up odds and ends from our American Revolution unit study(like our lapbook and reading one last book), to doing some grammar worksheets, practicing new spelling words in cursive, learning to skip count by 3s, and reviewing all the addition facts she knows. We have several card games and even a bingo game for the math facts, so it should be fun review.
With all the kids we will also be continuing with reading the stories of Jesus' life and ministry. Today we got to the raising of Lazarus. And we'll do the fun things we've been doing like baking goodies, singing Christmas songs, playing together, and hoping for some snow to play in outside again!
We will see how it goes!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Happy Birthday TagalongGirl ! ! !
Today our sweet girl turned 3! She had a fun day and here are cute shots from her party. You will have to forgive the funky black borders on the pictures, my editing program is doing weird things. It is the first year she actually opened presents - she's growing so fast. 
Friday, December 12, 2008
Morning Highlights Part II
So much for a nice, normal morning! Literally as I was publishing the past post I hear crying and screaming break out upstairs. Not good. Down comes BigGirl bleeding from her mouth. I send her to the bathroom with a towel and head to the bedroom to see what happened to the other half of the accident. AcrobatBoy is crying but not really injured. He was climbing on the end of the bunkbed and jumped down the last few feet backward. The back of his head collided with BigGirl's face.
Back downstairs I went to check out the damage.
I start laughing.
Yes, not my proudest moment as a sympathetic mommy, but it was an honest, relieved reaction. This is what I saw:
AcrobatBoy managed to knock out not one, but TWO of her front teeth! One was very loose and ready to come out anyway, and the other had been getting loose. Everything looks fine thankfully. We went upstairs and found the teeth on the bedroom floor so we can add them to our tooth lapbook.
Just another peek at our crazy mornings!
Morning Highlights
I thought I would post some picture highlights of our morning so far. It is just another typical Friday. Some people would say it's nothing special but today I am especially grateful just to be home with my children enjoying their little lives. I am truly blessed. God sent these amazing little spirits to our family and I love being their mommy!
Here is a picture of BabyBoy doing one of his favorite things - looking at books! If you've been to my house you know we love books. We have bookshelves in every room but the bathroom and kitchen. Even the kids bedrooms have their own bookshelves. And many many times a day BabyBoy will take stacks of book off the nearest shelf to flip through. It doesn't matter if they have any pictures. And he has yet to rip any pages (unlike another son of mine who loved to destroy books for the first several years of his life!). He is just copying what he sees mommy and daddy and all his siblings doing. I love to see it. My next goal is to teach him to put them back on a shelf though...
The bigger kids ate breakfast and begged for games this morning. We have this great domino set that goes clear up to 16 dots per side, and each comes in a different color. Dominoes are great for little fingers to count the dots! Especially as each dot on ours is a little indentation, so it helps them physically feel when to say another number. It also has four little train figures so they can make railroads and cities to drive around, and more.
This is one of the other games they requested this morning, basically a knock off of connect 4. They love playing with the chips and making patterns as they drop them in. It happens to be great for little fingers to practice fine motor skills, but they don't know that! BigGirl finally got a turn with it after she finished her grammar worsheet.
The big accomplishment of the morning was BigGirl finishing her cross stitch sampler she started last week. It turned out great but took a lot of attention from mommy. The cross stitching is a bit too hard yet I think and we'll not do another one for a few years! She does much better with knitting and doesn't need mommy to help. We'll stick with that for now. But nevertheless, she finished and we both learned great lessons in patience.
Besides that we have finished math lessons, done some preschool, and chores. Oh, and I think everyone has gotten dressed for the day too!
Here is a picture of BabyBoy doing one of his favorite things - looking at books! If you've been to my house you know we love books. We have bookshelves in every room but the bathroom and kitchen. Even the kids bedrooms have their own bookshelves. And many many times a day BabyBoy will take stacks of book off the nearest shelf to flip through. It doesn't matter if they have any pictures. And he has yet to rip any pages (unlike another son of mine who loved to destroy books for the first several years of his life!). He is just copying what he sees mommy and daddy and all his siblings doing. I love to see it. My next goal is to teach him to put them back on a shelf though...
The bigger kids ate breakfast and begged for games this morning. We have this great domino set that goes clear up to 16 dots per side, and each comes in a different color. Dominoes are great for little fingers to count the dots! Especially as each dot on ours is a little indentation, so it helps them physically feel when to say another number. It also has four little train figures so they can make railroads and cities to drive around, and more.
This is one of the other games they requested this morning, basically a knock off of connect 4. They love playing with the chips and making patterns as they drop them in. It happens to be great for little fingers to practice fine motor skills, but they don't know that! BigGirl finally got a turn with it after she finished her grammar worsheet.
The big accomplishment of the morning was BigGirl finishing her cross stitch sampler she started last week. It turned out great but took a lot of attention from mommy. The cross stitching is a bit too hard yet I think and we'll not do another one for a few years! She does much better with knitting and doesn't need mommy to help. We'll stick with that for now. But nevertheless, she finished and we both learned great lessons in patience.
Besides that we have finished math lessons, done some preschool, and chores. Oh, and I think everyone has gotten dressed for the day too!Thursday, December 11, 2008
A Project: Portable Circle Time
Today I am posting a project I would like to work on for our homeschool. Let yourself be inspired, or feel free to look at it and say to yourself, "Nope, that's not for me!"
The first project I am going to be working on is a Portable Circle Time Board. Now bear with me here, I know this smells a lot like public school, but you'll soon see how it can be tweaked for a homeschool full of children with many ages and skills, and heaven knows I've got a mix of ages begging to homeschool each day!
Basically you take one of those handy tri-fold display boards like kids use in science fair projects and attach items for skills you want to practice with your kids daily, or often. Take my family for example. I want a spot to velcro a letter of the week card, a shape card, a number of the week card, a color card, and calendar stuff(days of the week, weather, etc). Most of that is for my preschoolers.
I also want a place to velcro a math fact family of the week(something BigGirl needs consistent practice on).
I want a laminated map(this makes it useable with dry erase markers!) so we can find different states, countries, or places important to the current unit study or news article or family happening. For example we have an auntie who will be moving from Idaho to Florida with her husband next month. We can draw the route, measure which is closer to us in Ohio, and mark down the states and countries where we have other family living.
I want a spot to post the scripture we are trying to memorize as a family that week or month.
I want something that goes with our unit study, a picture, game, quiz question... something.
I know some of you are struggling to picture this, so here is a link to where I discovered this portable circle time idea. Go look at it HERE and see the photos of what one mom has done!
My goal is to create this board over the Christmas break and have it ready to kick off our new year in January.
The first project I am going to be working on is a Portable Circle Time Board. Now bear with me here, I know this smells a lot like public school, but you'll soon see how it can be tweaked for a homeschool full of children with many ages and skills, and heaven knows I've got a mix of ages begging to homeschool each day!
Basically you take one of those handy tri-fold display boards like kids use in science fair projects and attach items for skills you want to practice with your kids daily, or often. Take my family for example. I want a spot to velcro a letter of the week card, a shape card, a number of the week card, a color card, and calendar stuff(days of the week, weather, etc). Most of that is for my preschoolers.
I also want a place to velcro a math fact family of the week(something BigGirl needs consistent practice on).
I want a laminated map(this makes it useable with dry erase markers!) so we can find different states, countries, or places important to the current unit study or news article or family happening. For example we have an auntie who will be moving from Idaho to Florida with her husband next month. We can draw the route, measure which is closer to us in Ohio, and mark down the states and countries where we have other family living.
I want a spot to post the scripture we are trying to memorize as a family that week or month.
I want something that goes with our unit study, a picture, game, quiz question... something.
I know some of you are struggling to picture this, so here is a link to where I discovered this portable circle time idea. Go look at it HERE and see the photos of what one mom has done!
My goal is to create this board over the Christmas break and have it ready to kick off our new year in January.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Santa is Not Welcome at Our House
I was thinking about the holidays yesterday. Everyone does things differently, and that is okay. This post is not to say your family should be doing things the same way as my family, so no grumpy comments please!
In our family there are a few holiday traditions we just don't do. Halloween, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny. Since it IS December, I'm only going to tackle our reasons for no Santa Claus as part of our Christmas celebration. I realize here I'm going against the popular culture. I realize this may be a topic that causes instant gut reactions in some people. Just bear with me. I have thought of a simple way to SHOW you why it is important to us that Santa is not a part of any Christmas celebration.
Get out a pencil and paper. Go on, this will be quick and painless, but it will really make sense if you play along! Number your paper 1 - 7 please.
Now for the following list of words read the word and write the first word or phrase that comes to mind on the matching number on your paper. So if I read "cookies" the first thing I think of is "chocolate", so that is what I would write.
1. snow
2. presents
3. elves
4. Rudolph
5. Santa
6. North Pole
7. Christmas
Now number your paper again. We're doing the same thing, so 1 - 7, we'll just use different words.
1. manger
2. shepherd
3. star
4. angel
5. Mary
6. baby
7. Christmas
Look at your two lists. Now tell me what is the significance? Which list of words pointed your thoughts to the real meaning of Christmas?
In our family we decided a long time ago that Christmas was such an important time to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the real reason we have to celebrate, He is God's gift to us. Because Jesus was born, lived, died, and was resurrected, we can repent, be forgiven of our sins, live, die, and be resurrected. We have hope to live with God again. And that makes Jesus birthday something worth celebrating!
What we also found is that Satan has been hard at work. Any time there is something good or beautiful that points us to God, Satan does his best to make a counterfeit or broken thing to replace it. The stories and traditions of Santa Claus aren't evil. Not at all. They even have a nice moral "be good". But compare the two reasons for celebrating honestly and you will begin to see that in many homes and families the counterfeit reason for celebrating Christmas has become the main one, or even the only one. Santa isn't a bad story. But compared to the truth of Jesus birth, it is a broken one. It crowds out focusing on God's truth, God's Son, and why Christmas is really a time to celebrate. What does it benefit our family?
If you ask almost any child what they think of when you say the first many of the words from the first list, AND they have been raised to celebrate the stories surrounding Santa, they will talk a lot about Christmas. But the Christmas they will talk about is centered on presents and stuff and what they want and things like flying reindeer. Not once will they mention Jesus. Not once will they talk about the gift God gave us, or the real reason to celebrate Christmas.
So in our family, from the time our children were born, we have focused on Christmas as the time to celebrate God's gift to us, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. We tell and retell and play and pretend the stories of our Savior's birth and life. We count down to his birthday and give gifts to each other to celebrate Jesus' birthday, and often have personal gifts we decide to offer the Savior this year, be it trying to play nicely with a sibling, or helping without complaining, or sharing our blessings with others. There is no place for Santa in that, no need to distract our children from what Christmas is all about.
Some of you may wonder how we handle it when Santa comes up. It is inevitable that somewhere they are going to hear the santa stuff. It has been very simple. Santa is someone playing dress up for a story about a nice man. Kids understand that, they love playing dress up. But we always bring the conversation back to what WE know Christmas is about, our Savior's birth. We talk about how happy it makes Heavenly Father and Jesus when we remember them and what happened at Christmas. And we talk about how sad it probably makes them when a family loses sight of that truth and Santa Claus and his flying reindeer become the thing to celebrate at Christmas. We don't want to accept Satan's broken story as the only reason or even just a big reason to celebrate at Christmas. We want to celebrate God's story, and not to get distracted by the santa counterfeit.
In our family there are a few holiday traditions we just don't do. Halloween, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny. Since it IS December, I'm only going to tackle our reasons for no Santa Claus as part of our Christmas celebration. I realize here I'm going against the popular culture. I realize this may be a topic that causes instant gut reactions in some people. Just bear with me. I have thought of a simple way to SHOW you why it is important to us that Santa is not a part of any Christmas celebration.
Get out a pencil and paper. Go on, this will be quick and painless, but it will really make sense if you play along! Number your paper 1 - 7 please.
Now for the following list of words read the word and write the first word or phrase that comes to mind on the matching number on your paper. So if I read "cookies" the first thing I think of is "chocolate", so that is what I would write.
1. snow
2. presents
3. elves
4. Rudolph
5. Santa
6. North Pole
7. Christmas
Now number your paper again. We're doing the same thing, so 1 - 7, we'll just use different words.
1. manger
2. shepherd
3. star
4. angel
5. Mary
6. baby
7. Christmas
Look at your two lists. Now tell me what is the significance? Which list of words pointed your thoughts to the real meaning of Christmas?
In our family we decided a long time ago that Christmas was such an important time to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the real reason we have to celebrate, He is God's gift to us. Because Jesus was born, lived, died, and was resurrected, we can repent, be forgiven of our sins, live, die, and be resurrected. We have hope to live with God again. And that makes Jesus birthday something worth celebrating!
What we also found is that Satan has been hard at work. Any time there is something good or beautiful that points us to God, Satan does his best to make a counterfeit or broken thing to replace it. The stories and traditions of Santa Claus aren't evil. Not at all. They even have a nice moral "be good". But compare the two reasons for celebrating honestly and you will begin to see that in many homes and families the counterfeit reason for celebrating Christmas has become the main one, or even the only one. Santa isn't a bad story. But compared to the truth of Jesus birth, it is a broken one. It crowds out focusing on God's truth, God's Son, and why Christmas is really a time to celebrate. What does it benefit our family?
If you ask almost any child what they think of when you say the first many of the words from the first list, AND they have been raised to celebrate the stories surrounding Santa, they will talk a lot about Christmas. But the Christmas they will talk about is centered on presents and stuff and what they want and things like flying reindeer. Not once will they mention Jesus. Not once will they talk about the gift God gave us, or the real reason to celebrate Christmas.
So in our family, from the time our children were born, we have focused on Christmas as the time to celebrate God's gift to us, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. We tell and retell and play and pretend the stories of our Savior's birth and life. We count down to his birthday and give gifts to each other to celebrate Jesus' birthday, and often have personal gifts we decide to offer the Savior this year, be it trying to play nicely with a sibling, or helping without complaining, or sharing our blessings with others. There is no place for Santa in that, no need to distract our children from what Christmas is all about.
Some of you may wonder how we handle it when Santa comes up. It is inevitable that somewhere they are going to hear the santa stuff. It has been very simple. Santa is someone playing dress up for a story about a nice man. Kids understand that, they love playing dress up. But we always bring the conversation back to what WE know Christmas is about, our Savior's birth. We talk about how happy it makes Heavenly Father and Jesus when we remember them and what happened at Christmas. And we talk about how sad it probably makes them when a family loses sight of that truth and Santa Claus and his flying reindeer become the thing to celebrate at Christmas. We don't want to accept Satan's broken story as the only reason or even just a big reason to celebrate at Christmas. We want to celebrate God's story, and not to get distracted by the santa counterfeit.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Family that Works Together
Just a quick post about some of the things we did today for our unit study. We planned a nice dinner of spaghetti, homemade bread, and homemade butter. Which meant that we had some work to do! The whole family helped. Here is a picture of BigGirl during her turn grinding the wheat for our bread (which turned out yummy as usual!):
While the bread was baking the kids spent time practicing penmanship(like Felicity). We have these great dry erase books for manuscript and cursive, as well as the kids handy dry erase boards that have a lined side and a blank side. All of these came from WalMart and none cost over $5.00. I have found it saves a TON on paper. Especially for the preschoolers who may make two scribbles on a page and be done! AcrobatBoy and Tagalong Girl both practiced letters and BigGirl practiced the entire alphabet in cursive. I am amazed! Her handwriting has never been neat, but her cursive is rather nice and pretty. I'm trying to be consistent in reminding her to practice. She's still at the point where she needs to see the cursive letters to write them, and we have not learned the capital letters yet, though her dry erase book has them and we'll get there.
Here is a picture of the ingredients for homemade butter.
Yes, all we used was heavy whipping cream and a jar. Pour in the cream, tighten the lid, and begin to shake.
And shake.
And shake.
Everyone took turns, including our sweet BabyBoy:
Everyone took turns, including our sweet BabyBoy:
After a lot of shaking things really started to come together. Here is the final product and it was perfect on our bread warm out of the oven!
While the bread was baking the kids spent time practicing penmanship(like Felicity). We have these great dry erase books for manuscript and cursive, as well as the kids handy dry erase boards that have a lined side and a blank side. All of these came from WalMart and none cost over $5.00. I have found it saves a TON on paper. Especially for the preschoolers who may make two scribbles on a page and be done! AcrobatBoy and Tagalong Girl both practiced letters and BigGirl practiced the entire alphabet in cursive. I am amazed! Her handwriting has never been neat, but her cursive is rather nice and pretty. I'm trying to be consistent in reminding her to practice. She's still at the point where she needs to see the cursive letters to write them, and we have not learned the capital letters yet, though her dry erase book has them and we'll get there.
There were lots of other things we did today, including reading some in the 4th Felicity book. That's all I've got time to tell you about right now though, so hope you liked the pictures!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Are we still using the schedule?
It's been a bit since I posted about the new schedule we were trying with the Managers of Their Homes book. You can read my last post here:
http://ourbusyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2008/11/working-schedule.html
In the two weeks since that update a lot has happened, including a TON of sickness among the ranks. We've also had a holiday(Thanksgiving). We've had doctor's appointments. We've had interruptions and unexpected happenings.
The Verdict: I LOVE MY SCHEDULE!
We really use it the first half of the day. I am still getting up before 7:00am every day. It is so nice to have some quiet time just for me. I had planned on reading scriptures and exercising during this time. Exercise isn't happening due to pregnancy issues. But I have been reading more in my scriptures. Horray! I don't like reading them when the kids are up and crazy because I just don't get as much out of what I read, so this is wonderful.
We are not super strict on the kids' wake up time (7:00am). Some days I wake them, other days I leave them until 8am, and with a sick child I'm leaving them as long as they stay asleep. We don't plan to start homeschool until 9:00am so this still gives us plenty of time to eat breakfast, get dressed for the day, and do some chores if they are needed.
Next up is homeschool. Math happens so easily now with BigGirl! She is totally into the habit of doing it independently, then coming to me for any help and to check it over. One thing I would love to do is make some more math games though, something fun that will still help build skills. The preschoolers ask for math time too. They love getting out math manipulatives or board games. Some days they like doing a number worksheet, or a counting game.
If you've read the recent posts our current unit has been lots of fun and everyone enjoys working on it. It is the sweetest thing to hear my children playing and pretending the history topic we've been studying, or have them ask me to read "just one more chapter" of our read-aloud book.
We still slip the preschool stuff in there too, though I have a project I'm going to work on that will make that a bit more organized. I'll post more about that another time. The preschoolers use their dry erase boards to practice letters, read books with mommy or big sister, color, do worksheets, and anything else they can think of.
After this the kids generally play together or we bake something or turn on a video. Then it is lunch. After lunch and cleanup we are ready for naptime/quiettime. Every day BabyBoy naps. Almost every day TagalongGirl naps. Occasionally AcrobatBoy and BigGirl nap. Everyone heads to their bed with a supply of books to read. It has been a wonderful addition to our life.
That is the point that we really end our schedule. The rest of the afternoon is play, chores, and family time once daddy is home. We read scriptures. We sing songs. We practice sign language. We do crafts. We build with Duplos. We watch a movie. We read more books.
Over and over I have seen the blessings of having regular time for chores and homeschool. One night Daddy called to say he would be bringing the missionaries home to dinner, in about 45 seconds!!!! He had met them at the pizza shop down the street and invited them to come over. Before the schedule that would have panicked me. There was no way the house could be semi-ready for people to walk through the door. I don't mind a few toys on the floor, we do have kids, but I prefer it NOT to look like a tornado hit. Before the schedule there would have been many days when the kids and I were not even out of pajamas. Before the schedule it would be very iffy whether there would be enough clean dishes for that many people to eat on. But it was no big deal. The kids grabbed the few toys that were out and put them away. I opened the door and let everyone in. It was fun. And the poor missionaries even survived my excited children.
http://ourbusyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2008/11/working-schedule.html
In the two weeks since that update a lot has happened, including a TON of sickness among the ranks. We've also had a holiday(Thanksgiving). We've had doctor's appointments. We've had interruptions and unexpected happenings.
The Verdict: I LOVE MY SCHEDULE!
We really use it the first half of the day. I am still getting up before 7:00am every day. It is so nice to have some quiet time just for me. I had planned on reading scriptures and exercising during this time. Exercise isn't happening due to pregnancy issues. But I have been reading more in my scriptures. Horray! I don't like reading them when the kids are up and crazy because I just don't get as much out of what I read, so this is wonderful.
We are not super strict on the kids' wake up time (7:00am). Some days I wake them, other days I leave them until 8am, and with a sick child I'm leaving them as long as they stay asleep. We don't plan to start homeschool until 9:00am so this still gives us plenty of time to eat breakfast, get dressed for the day, and do some chores if they are needed.
Next up is homeschool. Math happens so easily now with BigGirl! She is totally into the habit of doing it independently, then coming to me for any help and to check it over. One thing I would love to do is make some more math games though, something fun that will still help build skills. The preschoolers ask for math time too. They love getting out math manipulatives or board games. Some days they like doing a number worksheet, or a counting game.
If you've read the recent posts our current unit has been lots of fun and everyone enjoys working on it. It is the sweetest thing to hear my children playing and pretending the history topic we've been studying, or have them ask me to read "just one more chapter" of our read-aloud book.
We still slip the preschool stuff in there too, though I have a project I'm going to work on that will make that a bit more organized. I'll post more about that another time. The preschoolers use their dry erase boards to practice letters, read books with mommy or big sister, color, do worksheets, and anything else they can think of.
After this the kids generally play together or we bake something or turn on a video. Then it is lunch. After lunch and cleanup we are ready for naptime/quiettime. Every day BabyBoy naps. Almost every day TagalongGirl naps. Occasionally AcrobatBoy and BigGirl nap. Everyone heads to their bed with a supply of books to read. It has been a wonderful addition to our life.
That is the point that we really end our schedule. The rest of the afternoon is play, chores, and family time once daddy is home. We read scriptures. We sing songs. We practice sign language. We do crafts. We build with Duplos. We watch a movie. We read more books.
Over and over I have seen the blessings of having regular time for chores and homeschool. One night Daddy called to say he would be bringing the missionaries home to dinner, in about 45 seconds!!!! He had met them at the pizza shop down the street and invited them to come over. Before the schedule that would have panicked me. There was no way the house could be semi-ready for people to walk through the door. I don't mind a few toys on the floor, we do have kids, but I prefer it NOT to look like a tornado hit. Before the schedule there would have been many days when the kids and I were not even out of pajamas. Before the schedule it would be very iffy whether there would be enough clean dishes for that many people to eat on. But it was no big deal. The kids grabbed the few toys that were out and put them away. I opened the door and let everyone in. It was fun. And the poor missionaries even survived my excited children.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
More Pictures from last Book Club
Here are more pictures from our American Girl Book Club last month. A mom from the group took them and I was finally able to get a copy. Horray! My last post about this day can be read here:
We were studying a native american girl named Kaya and went to the Pugh's farm to ride horses and do our activities that day:
Our Tea-Free Tea Party
What a week we've had. Sickness has been running rampant through the house, the newest addition being Makayla's ear infection brought on by the congestion from the cold she's had. Today we are supposed to be at our American Girl Book Club, right as I type this. It is the first of two months focusing on Felicity, the American Revolution girl who we just happen to be reading and studying for our unit study. :) The plan today was a "tea party" with no real tea, only juice or lemonade(which is a nice thing because we don't drink tea!). The girls were to dress up, practice their manners, talk about the first 3 books, and then try a stitching sampler on paper(markers and graph paper).
We've been working on a cross stitch sampler so we're skipping the graph paper one. But we saw no reason to skip the "tea party", so we baked our special pumpkin muffins and served them with milk from our little china teapot. The kids were thrilled that we even lit a candle on the table. Each child was a character from the book: Felicity, Nan, Ben, and William, and we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit!
Monday, December 1, 2008
My 100th Post!
Today is my 100th post! Amazing. It is amazing that I have written here 100 times. It is amazing that anyone reads what I write here once and comes back to read again. :) I would love to say today's post will be some remarkable, enlightening post. But I would probably be lying. Instead it will be a quick journal of some things that have happened today. And there will even be a picture.
Today had a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns. BabyBoy had to go for more vaccinations at the doctor. He wasn't thrilled and neither was I. Poor guy took a nice long nap after suffering through 3 shots. Then we stopped at the bank's drive thru to CASH some checks. Yes! Definitely a good thing. We've been selling off old cloth diaper things so we can buy what we really want in cloth diapers for the baby. And it has been selling! Over $150.00 towards the new diaper fund. We've also posted some things on Craigslist to sell clearing out toys before Christmas. And some have sold! I'm really surprised, but it is a huge blessing too! We usually just take unloved/unused toys to Goodwill, and whatever doesn't sell will end up there. But any money is welcome.
Next I dropped the sleeping boy off home with Daddy and the other kids and took all that diaper mail to the post office. It went to Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania, and I got another check in the mail today for diaper stuff to go to California. :) Horray.
Then I made a trip to the store for some essentials. When I returned home I discovered I was bleeding. Not a good thing for a pregnant woman who is not due for 13 weeks! I talked with my midwife who advised getting off my feet, drinking fluids, and calling her if I started having contractions, if the baby stopped moving, or if my bleeding increased. So off my feet I went. After several hours I have stopped bleeding, so that is a good thing. I spent part of that time really looking at our homeschool stuff to see what can be streamlined in case I end up on bedrest. I really really hope I don't! But we have things figured out just in case.
Speaking of homeschool, we did get a lot done today. BigGirl did math on her own, we finished reading the 2nd book in the Felicity series, the preschoolers did math with daddy, and the kids made horn books. Here is a picture for those of you not familiar with them. In colonial times a child was homeschooled usually and learned their alphabet and to read with a horn book. BigGirl's has letters in cursive since that is what she's working on. We did other things too like scripture study, independent reading, sign language practice, and song practice.
TagalongGirl's pinkeye is getting better. BigGirl is coughing and has a sore throat though, so I'm hoping she feels better soon.
We did some of the usual cleaning, cooking, and playing. And now we're almost ready for bed so I need to get going. Have a great day!
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