You can’t write this stuff…

December 3, 2013 | Stacy

The noise was perplexing. And loud.

The boys had just headed outside with all of the Spanish teacher’s materials to load up her car. The nieve (snow) on the ground was so inviting to los estudiantes (the students) who had spent the last 90 minutes expanding their vocabulary.

I’m not sure who started the snowball fight, but son A ran to the door just as son B prepared to aim his snowball. Son B released the snowball before he realized that son A was opening said door.

The noise was perplexing. And loud…

And the Spanish teacher laughingly noted that she had raised four daughters and had never experienced this sort of thing.

She has no idea.

Keeping busy

November 19, 2013 | Stacy

Katriel is busy learning all about her world. She spends a lot of time in the “Duck Pond.” (That is the large gated area of the living room. I don’t have a picture, yet.)
When she’s not in the “Pond” she likes to take apart this cupboard.

None of the other kids ever did this. We had too few low cupboards in the other house for me to have a kid-safe cupboard. And I never thought of it with Johanna. Katriel found it one day and now she heads to it every chance she gets. It has allowed Stewart and I to get English 8 done most days. 🙂

Square dancing with our PCC LEAH group

November 9, 2013 | Stacy

There was a family dance night with our homeschool group. Or as Johanna called it, “The Ball.”

I’m not convinced they are any clearer on the difference between a do-si-do and a promenade left…

But we had a lot of fun.

Marie and Tabitha kept Daddy’s dance card completely full.

More art class

November 6, 2013 | Stacy

I love doing art at home.

I pick art projects from www.artprojectsforkids.org and do them in whatever moments we can spare.

Scientific Stew

October 30, 2013 | Stacy

Stewart’s Physical Science program is amazingly cool. It is a CD-ROM program that he uses daily and it walks him through experiment after experiment. He builds machines and then makes hypothesis as to how they will perform in certain tests. He then conducts the test and evaluates his hypothesis. Very neat stuff.

PS – I don’t make them dress the same – they did that so they could be on the same team at CBS.

Little sisters are interested, too.

http://www.educationexploration.com/intermediate/projects.html

Science Geeks?

October 11, 2013 | Stacy

We’ve had a ton of science experiments going on around here, as well as science projects.

Nigel made some animal tracks one week.

And experimented with chocolate and corn syrup to see how an anteater’s tongue works.

Stewart had to develop his own experiment using water, salt, sugar, corn syrup. He decided to measure how eggs float (or sink) as each is used as a solute. He figured out control vs. variable.

He also has thus far build a glider, a steam boat and a racer to conduct experiments.

I don’t think either of them plans to make a career out of this stuff… but it is more interesting than other years, as you can see. 🙂

Homeschool 2013-1014

September 24, 2013 | Stacy

I haven’t said much about this year’s homeschool. Frankly, it’s because I have barely had a moment to post the occasional photo on the blog, much less offer much information or text about our family.

Things…Are…Intense.

It’s the amount of work represented by grades 8, 6, 4 & 2! At least two days a week we’ve been doing school from 8:30 AM to after dinner. It’s the meaty curriculum we use, yet I know God has totally directed what we do.

So. We persevere. That includes time to do corrections & rewrites, etc. They have so much writing. John helps me support Stewart with science b/c it is physical science (not my thing and it’s totally John’s). But we are limited on what we can do weekends because of my working.

I’m still in the middle of totally accepting it and searching for ways to improve things.

I know this year was a huge jump from easy to hard partly because I had Stewart doing WAY too much on his own the last two years (through miscarriages and pregnancies and a generally self-focused season). Although Stewart’s abilities are right-on-track, I was convicted last winter to get back to more oversight for him and it seems to be yielding good things — BUT taking a lot of time. I also haven’t given Nigel the freedom I gave Stewart in 6th grade. He’s getting way more oversight. So my checking up, plus Mommy-directed language and Mommy-corrected math keeps me so crazy busy. (John tries to correct the math a few days a week, but I prefer to do it so he can do other fun things in his limited time home). I am seeing good things with this already and just trusting God will use this period of training for His glory. It hurts, but it will be good.

Add a vivacious 3-year-old and an ever-changing 7-month-old in the equation, and you have a very full day. (This doesn’t mention the most basic chores necessary to keep a home running.)

All in all, we wouldn’t have it any other way. I am so happy to have my kids home with me. But we work HARD HARD HARD. Every single day. Feel free to pray for us. I’m clinging to God’s Word. It’s a good place to cling.

Firestation field trip

September 21, 2013 | Stacy

It was a rainy Saturday that Mommy DIDN’T have to work. Our local fire station had an open house and we enjoyed our first fire station tour in years. Frankly, I don’t know if Johanna has ever been to one, and Tabitha was quite little the last time around.

The boys even made the most of it.
The kids got a tour of the Fire Safety house with tips on keeping your home protected, etc.

When we got home Tabitha created some of her own Firefighter gear and recruited some help along the way.

More science experimenting…

September 13, 2013 | Stacy

Doing a game from Nigel’s science book. Seeing how an area of land can only support so many deer and so many cougars.

Doesn’t homeschool look like FUN. We have FUN all day and all night around here. Heh. Um. Well. We have a lot of fun. I’ll post about our LONG days, soon.