homeschool

Homeschool heart model

| Stacy
Kids and I continue to enjoy our Anatomy and Physiology curriculum for this year.  We made a model of the heart and I must say the $70 I spent on the lab kit this year has been worth it’s weight in gold!  I just love opening the box and having 85% of what I need at my finger tips. 
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One day down, 179 to go…

| Stacy
We enjoyed survived our first day of school today.  Overall, I gave it a 7 out of 10.  It went off painlessly, but not perfectly.
We did a lot of prep last week.  I spent hours and hours (and hours) on the computer generating chore charts and schedules.  Then I sat on them a day or two and prayed about it and tweaked them.  They more-or-less worked.  I looked up lots and lots of books on Amazon where I could see the inside pages, then checked to make certain our library carried them.  We have reading plans for the year for each child individually and for read-alouds for two age groups.  I even remember to order the books we needed.  Most of them, anyway.
I visited WalMart and stocked up on supplies without stopping at the cardboard kiosk to pick up supply lists.  This has pros and con.  The most obvious pro is that I can buy my kids whatever color folders they want.  They can even have the same color for all of their subjects if they want.  The con is that without a cheat-sheet I can end up not buying enough of something.  Not that that could happen to me.
I dug books out of the basement and found everyone’s books for this year.  They got to exchange the book covers if they wanted to.  Tabitha carried her history books around proudly for almost a week.  She gasped with JOY when she saw her language book.  And looked horrified when she opened it up and a huge bound section fell out.  (We ordered another one.)
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Yup – with all those plans in place we started out the morning with out schedule, a timer, and a LOT OF PRAYER.
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Off the bat we realized we couldn’t find Stewart’s spelling CDs.  Okay.  Okay.  Not a problem.  We can miss one day of spelling for a kid who scores post-High School on his Stanfords.  Then it dawned on me Nigel’s copy of Pedro’s Journal didn’t come yet; I ordered it from Amazon a week ago.  That’s okay, that’s okay.  He’ll just need to read extra tomorrow, or Wednesday.  No problem.  Then there was the realization that Tab’s spelling lists are too hard for her to manage and locate in the big instruction manual.  The bell went off in my head and I remembered needing to type the list out for Marie in 2010.  No problem.  I’ll have time later.  Right? And Marie needed a notebook for her spelling.  That’s easy.  I’ll just get her one out of the bag of supplies… you know they bag of school supplies I bought last week WHEN I FORGOT TO BUY A SINGLE NOTEBOOK!?!
We actually started school a half-hour early due to enthusiasm.  And each of the kids did a fairly good job entertaining Johanna during their assigned time with her.  She wasn’t all that keen on the whole business, though.  That is going to be the toughest part.
After lunch (served on time! Thank you, LORD) Johanna went to her nap and the overall tone of the house simmered down a bit.  Whew.  We all felt it.  And the kids were pleased to hear me give the day, at that point, a 6 out of ten.
We did science and the big pat on the back goes to Tabitha who listened better than everyone else.  She got three fist bumps out of it.  Go, Tab!  And the day ended with Stewart working on his history (art) project, which called for making salt dough… Hmmm.
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It was a TOTAL fail, so we resorted to play-doh to make an arch.  Hopefully it will dry out enough overnight to decorate.
It wasn’t all fun and games… the garbage can was upset during lunch clean-up.
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And much to Nigel’s disappointment I hadn’t gotten to the library to pick up his and Stewart’s storytime book (a/k/a read aloud) and we had to eliminate that for today, also.
All in all, we got about 90% of each person’s work done, except Nigel.  So he decided to do extra math to fill up his time.  But I figure that we managed to do more academic work than most first days of public school.  After all, I didn’t need to establish any assigned seating, or go over the protocol to request visiting the bathroom.  Marie had to alphabetize names of Old Testament prophets.  Nigel did two worksheets on action and state-of-being verbs.  Stewart had to make salt dough!  LOL…

It’s only one day down… and 179 to go.  But if today is any indication
WE ARE GOING TO SURVIVE.
(But it is going to be messy!)

“Look what I did, Mom!”

| Stacy

Angel has been really, REALLY struggling to read. 
While she has perception beyond her years, and has often been regarded as tremendously clever, Angel is just struggling A LOT with learning to read.  She is the only child in these disciples’ house that wasn’t reading by age 5. 

We’ve been working a lot with letters and sounds.  I left the table about 10 minutes before this picture was taken.  I left fighting back tears and lamenting to our God.  “HOW can this be!!  Why can’t she get it? LORD lift the veil from her mind.  WHY CAN’T SHE READ?  She’s so SMART, God.  I am helpless to help her, LORD, but You are not!”  And then – just like David did now and then, I pulled out the big card, “LORD, how can she read your Word if she can’t read??”  That should convince Him to unlock her mind, right? 😉

When I composed myself.  I came in to the computer to email a friend of mine who is an early childhood education expert.  She has been encouraging me and offering me support and suggestions these last few months. 

Angel called me back to see her work.  She was particularly pleased to show me how when she ran out of letters she made her own.  See the second and third Ms in Mommy, the first M in Marie, and the A in Nan.

“Thank you, God, for my daughter.  Exactly how You made her.  I am humbled by her weaknesses and trust that she will read Your Word according to Your timing.”

Oh, how many times does He use my children for my refining.

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Back to school…

| Stacy
Okay, okay, so we never really STOP school in these parts. But we are onto a regular schedule that the kids are warming up to [after some drastic changes on Mom’s part.]

My favorite parts of the day are listening to the boys read to me and storytime, when I read to them.

These days Champ is reading the Rod and Staff God is Good series and Beau is reading Amelia Earhart from the Young Patriots Series.

Dayspring Academy is back in session.

| Stacy
Our fourth homeschool year has begun. While we never give up “the books” completely, we do enjoy a lighter schedule throughout the summer. The first of August we started with our science [Seashore] and history [The Wright Bros.] because they will so nicely complement our upcoming [surprise] trip to the Outer Banks. This past week we have worked to add back in our math, english, poetry, music, etc., etc., etc.

This has not been going well.

The first two weeks, Skeezix was a pain! Everytime I would get out the boys’ history book she would stand in front of me and invent questions, or when she was asked to go play with Angel, or go to the other room, etc., she would leave, but then walk back in a moment later and drop a toy banana on our open book, or throw a ball at her brothers. By God’s grace [and a LOT of time outs] she now is doing well playing by herself or doing her own “school” which is to copy words off of other things.

Angel – she is another story. She is a mess! She pulls the book out of my hand, or sits on my lap to listen… for 16 seconds and then tries to turn the pages, when I won’t let her, she slaps me. Off to time out… we start again, now she needs help in the potty. Off to help. Oh, look, the boys are messing around. Okay – start over again. Now it is quiet. Too quiet. Angel is in the bathroom applying foam soap to her “bebe.” Redirection. Melt-down. Consoling. Boys are now playing with swords. Walk Angel to Skeezix and ask Skeezix to play with her… Angel says, “No play, Rie. Rie bowing.” But, she does stay up there. We finish our reading and move on to the activity. Then you hear crying. Need I go on?

The blessings of homeschool are abundant. I will post another time of what I witnessed recently at Target with parents shopping off those school needs lists. 😛 But the actual logistics of pulling it off are not pretty. Oh, yeah, I get lots of very unhelpful suggestions from other homeschoolers which for reasons A, B or C would not work here. But once in a while I get what I really need… another mom whose eyes light up and says, “YES! It is the exact same way at my house!” which I did get to hear on Tuesday from a friend with 5 kids in my 4 kids age range. I guess what I need more than answers is knowing I am not alone.

Here are some photos from our resent science and history lessons.
As we learned about high and low tides, Champ delighted us as he picked up the concept immediately. This is his Science Exploration book. Notice his cursive! ♥

This is Beau’s same interpretation. Notice his Donald Duck! ♥ I took the photo before he was done coloring.

Beau’s vocabulary box. He was excited when he found the exclamation point sticker to use.

And this is an experiment from history. We are trying to figure out air lift like the Wright Bros.

Homeschool Phys. Ed.

| Stacy

I am totally dying here, laughing. I don’t know what is funnier, the notion of including this on my quarterly report, or the fact that I took the time to record it, instead of putting a stop to it. They did stop some of the more daring moves when they saw me approaching!

VERY busy week here. NYS LEAH homeschool convention is this weekend, as well as our trip to SESAME PLACE!! Pray for some nice weather for us, and I will have lots of pictures next week.

Another week!

| Stacy

I should say, “another week of winter!!!” Boy it has been cold. We did enjoy a mild day on Tuesday, thankfully, as Beau and I went to a 5½ hour field trip on the Underground Railroad conducted in the city. It was a wonderfully educating trip. It was mostly over his head, but he behaved respectfully and I loved it. Here is Beau and his buddy, Frederick Douglass.

My newpasttime is watching groundhogs. I spend a lot of time at the kitchen sink or at the school table in the dining room. Both settings afford a wonderful view of the backyard and the goings-on of our resident groundhogs. I am now working to get pictures of the happy, GROWING family. Harvey, Helen and the kids are reluctant to have me capture their images. I will get back to you. Just call me Dian Fossey. Or not.

Champ’s doing fantastic with reading. His sentences this week included silent letters, “The dumb lamb knows how to climb in my lap and nestle.” He thinks it is a bit odd to have so many silent letters. Um, yeah, so do I!

Skeezix is a trip. She offered to “put the wrappers on [sic] Angel’s shoes.” She meant if I put the shoe on, she’d do the velcro straps.

I forgot to share this photo from Mother’s Day. After a fun craft of tracing hands during Sunday School, she decided to replicate the project… on my dining room chair. This is her saying, “Not me.”

And Angel. Funny little kid. Champ is trying to teach her animal sounds. *sigh* They all sound so much alike!

While we went to the Underground Railroad, the kids hung out at our friends’ house. Afterward we all hung there for dinner. Angel and her fried Bear went for a stroll.
And Champ, not aware of his own strength, bumped into Skeezix, and well…

We shall try again!

| Stacy

Going to try this blog again! Now that life is a bit quieter [for the moment!]

Last week was a fun one. We had NO outside commitments and we enjoyed our days at home. Well, there was a bit of cabin fever by the end of the week, I think.

For Beau’s school we read Ephesians 6 and then our curriculum suggesting making armor of God for our stuffed animals. The three older ones all chose to dress up Maow. Since Skeezix’s was left at a friend, she confiscated Angel’s for the modeling job.

I think they look wonderful.

On Friday night, Skeezix and I went to Home Depot for marigolds. I allowed her to pick them out and she was very proud. She was also able to carry them! And she even helped me plant them.

Angel is doing so-so with the potty-training. She is a solid 8 weeks into this and it isn’t “done” yet and I am going wacky. I do not like potty-training. I have only been a mom 8 years and by far potty-training is the WORST part of the first 8 years of a child’s life. I loathe it. Diapers – you change them on YOUR timing. “Oh! Pee Mom. Pee!” means I have to drop everything and RUN to the bathroom. Still, I can’t throw in the towel and go back. It would feel like the time we’ve invested was for nothing. Like not using frequent flier miles before they expired. Potty-training. It is what will keep me from having more kids!

The weekend brought manual labor and landscaping. DH worked in the rain and got the side of the house by the garage done. It looks amazing. He’d have never finished in time had he not had help from his buddy, Champ. Champ not only kept Daddy company and talked with him for hours at a time IN THE RAIN, but he also got into the labor.

On a serious note, I told the boys about the earthquakes in China and the cyclone in Myanmar and the enormous loss of lives. Since we have been reading, Missionary Stories with the Millers, the boys associate these countries with their need to hear the Gospel. Champ said, “Mom! They don’t know Jesus there. That means those people who died didn’t go to Heaven, right?” Beau wondered what the people still alive would do. We decided to pray for them. Last night I heard them playing talking while they played with their play-doh. They were pretending that the characters they were using were telling other characters about Jesus. Boy, I hope THAT sticks with them.