A Crazy Couple of Days

Wow! I feel like we have been super busy lately. Here are the (more or less) highlights of what has been going on around the Owl Nest. Warning... it's long.

Owl Poppa has been a bit under the weather, and his work schedule has been a bit weird (he works three days a week, 12 hour days, which is weird all by itself, but the schedule has been weirder lately). His work schedule always throws a monkey wrench into our homeschool schedule. It's been hard getting lessons completed in a reasonable amount of time on days when he is home, especially when he is home and sick. But, his schedule is also one of the reasons we homeschool, so it is what it is.

(Completely and totally as an aside, I just LOVE that expression... it is what it is. It seems appropos to everything lately. It truly sums up the new level of acceptance I am feeling about things in my life. Okay, random thought over... carry on)

The kids have all taken turns feeling run down as well. I tried complaining to Owl Poppa about the lack of "routine" around here with all these sick days. His response... the same thing is happening in the public schools, too. He's always so rational! :)

We've been doing lots more hands on projects and celebrating lots of interesting things lately as well. I posted about Katie's birthday, the first day of fall, and Johnny Appleseed Day. We also celebrated Michaelmas (albeit a few days late). I don't know too much about Michaelmas, really, but remember reading that it is sometime celebrated as a harvest festival and with the story of St. George and the dragon, and that you shouldn't eat blackberries after Michaelmas (because when Michael threw the Devil out of Heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush... the kids think this part of the story is hysterical). So, we mostly did what we did last year. We read the Reluctant Dragon (we all love this one), as well as the story of St. George and the Dragon. We also read Custard the Dragon and Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight. The kids put on a mini performance of a dragon slaying. J and W took turns being the dragon and slaying each other. K was the damsel in distress. I wanted to make a blackberry crumble again, but the kids voted on blackberry kefir smoothies :)

We braved a rainstorm Thursday to meet friends at the park. It actually only rained for a few minutes, and then cleared up, though the sky stayed really grey. But the great company made up for the crummy weather.

We spent Friday night sitting for a friend's little girl. This was really fun. We had an indoor picnic in the living room. We set up the picnic mat on the floor, and then all four kids pretended to chase away birds and ants that were after the picnic. I had to be the bird swooping in to steal the pizza. We played tag, and board games, and Barbies, and then watched cartoons. It was awesome.

Owl Poppa celebrated his birthday over the weekend. J made him a card (spelling all the words himself... I was really proud). The kids worked hard the day before to clean up their playroom and library and bedrooms before he got home from work as a birthday surprise for him. And they picked out new tools and a new tool box as his present. They wrapped the present in playsilks and gave it to him in the morning. We took him out for Tex Mex in the afternoon, and then had cake and ice cream. W is now officially obsessed with birthday cake.

This morning, we went to a science lesson on desert adaptations at one of the local parks. The lesson included a walk along the trails with a guide who pointed out lots of the local flora and fauna (man, I have always wanted to be able to use that expression, lol). Because of all the (much needed) rain we've been getting, there were lots and lots of wildflowers out on the trails. The kids got to touch a coyote pelt and skull, a jack rabbit pelt and skull, look at roadrunner and owl feet and skulls, and see rattlesnake skins. We learned about cactus (and the bugs that live on them), about different types of leaves and how plants adapt to the dry weather, about native people cooked the roots of certain plants, and which ones along the trail were used for making sandals. We even got to take a cactus (our "spiky friend") home with us. The kids are so pleased, and it has a place of honor in our library room (up high, because that sucker is really poky). I wish I has pictures but I forgot my camera.

But we barely made it at all because we all over slept and made it out of the house in under 30 minutes (hence the forgetting of the camera). The kids ate the snacks we packed for breakfast, and then we ended up going out to lunch. Everyone loved the field trip, but we've all seemed a bit out of sorts all day.

So, it's back to our schedule as usual tomorrow. And back to meals at home. And finishing up some of the projects we're working on (expect cool pictures in the next few days). We're also preparing for the Owl Family Birthday Bash this weekend... one big party for all of us. So there is lots more craziness ahead. But I guess we wouldn't really have it any other way.

OWL MOMMA

PS It's late. I will come back and add appropriate links in the morning. Maybe.

Laughing At Myself -- otherwise entitled This Year's Schedule

I was all set to type out this school year's schedule for y'all, and realized it is exactly like our summer schedule. We did pretty much nothing all summer due to illness and moving. C'est la vie, non?

Here are the only additions/changes:

Language Arts: we're starting First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, G.U.M Drops, and Spelling Workout for J.

Math Decisions: we are bumping J to Saxon 2, and letting K work through several lessons at a time in Saxon K.

Character Building: we have a new character building program that is due to arrive on Tuesday. I'll post later about whether or not we like it :)

I guess I'll save my energy for a post on what our school days look like... maybe that will be more interesting!

Laughing at Myself,
OWL MOMMA

Back to School and Other Milestones

First off, this is my 100th post! Amazing. Didn't think I'd ever have that much to blog about :) And it seems like a fitting milestone for blowing the dust off this old blog and starting anew!

That's the thing I love about back to school time. Even more so than New Year's, there is a feeling of fresh beginnings. I love the new pencils, the stacks of notebooks waiting to be filled, the promise of the upcoming school year. And it isn't just the school year that is changing. The world is slowly changing too, preparing for winter. I love the sense of anticipation the fall brings... looking forward to being another year older, the the birthdays of my children, to the magic of the holidays... I love it!

It's also time to reign in the focus of this blog. I have decided to keep it (fairly) strictly to just homeschooling and kid related stuff. I have another blog in the works to give me a place to keep track of my deep thoughts :) I'll keep the Little Owls as the stars of Little Owl Learning!

After a flurry of end of summer events, including a fairly last-minute trip to the coast (the first time my children have been to a beach), we started back to our school routine this past Monday. We're slowly getting back into the swing of things. After completing this first week, I feel pretty good!

Our lesson plans look pretty much like out previous ones. We'll be adding in spelling and grammar for J, and we now officially have a third student... W refuses to be left out of all the fun. He has been running around the house calling me "teacher"... too cute!

We had a big back to school kick off... Each of the kids got a pencil box full of little back to school treats... markers, mini notebooks, new school socks :) We had a little party including owl cupcakes... they were a huge hit (though I used homemade chocolate cake and buttercream frosting, YUM). Then after all the lessons were complete, we took the kids to the library, and the big kids got their first official library cards... they were SO excited! And then the fun continued Tuesday with a "Not Back to School" party with our homeschool group.

Looking forward to the new year!

OWL MOMMA

Wrong Side of the Bed

Now, I actually get up on the wrong side of the bed EVERY morning, since I sleep sideways across the bed. This is one of the benefits of cosleeping with W, and not having Owl Poppa in my room. W and I can sprawl all out over the king-sized bed :)

But this morning, I woke up GRUMPY!!!! W was up at least ten times overnight. I don't know if it is teeth, or the full moon, or the alignment of the stars, or what... but man, I have had enough. I can't function on so little sleep. Blech. Not at all the way I had hoped to start out the week.

SIGH

After attempting to get through a few school lessons with J, while W crawled all over the back of the couch and practiced jumping down onto my head, well, I just gave up. I took a shower, loaded all the kids into the car, made a stop at the taco joint drive thru (nothing fixes a bad day lke carb loading... white flour tortillas and a 44 oz Coke... YUM), and headed off to the park.

Thing did get better. Thankfully. We were able to spend some time with my awesome friend J and her kids... check out J's blog here. All the kids got to run around with light sabers. Nothing makes my kids happier than light sabers. :)

We also had a celebrity sighting! There in the playground, pushing kids on the swings and playing in the sandbox, was one of our hometeam basketball players. This wasn't just any old fella... this was Tim Duncan. I mean the guy has won 4 NBA championships. He's been MVP twice and Finals MVP three times (I think... you had best check with Owl Poppa for totally accurate stats). Anyway, here was this awesome upper-eschelon NBA player, sitting in the sandbox at our local park. It was awesome.

Most awesome of all was that none of the folks at the park, dads included, bothered him... not even one autograph request in the hour or so we overlapped at the park... he got to just be a poppa and hang out. I didn't tell the kids who it was until after we left. And J was totally psyched... you know why? Because now he knows approximately how tall Yao Ming is... Too funny. He's been obsessed with Yao Ming lately.

I was frustrated at how little schooling got done today, but glad to be able to call it a day when needed and head to the park to reset. And now we're going to make pear muffins... YAY! Every day is better with muffins!

Pear Muffins (adapted from the La Leche League Cookbook)

2 unpeeled ripe pears, chopped finely

1/2 C honey

1 egg

1/4 C melted butter (or oil)

1 C milk

1 3/4 C whole wheat flour

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t ground cloves

1/2 t salt

2 t baking powder

1/4 C wheat germ

Mix pear and honey in bowl, tossing to coat. Set to the side. In a large bowl, beat egg, butter, and milk. Add dry ingredients except wheat germ and stir to combine. Fold in pear mixture. Fill greased muffin cups around 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Yiled is around 16 muffins.

Today's Lessons and the Redbox

NOTE: I typed this up last night, but was having trouble with the photos.

We had a GREAT day of school today! Like, totally-and-completely-everything-I-could-have-hoped-it-would-be-make-me-thankful-we're-homeschooling-and-sure-we're-on-the-right-track kind of GREAT. Here are some of the highlights.

J is making amazing progress with his reading skills. I am super proud of him.

We did a great math lesson (combining two lessons from the Saxon 1 book; we're gonna hang out with that one for awhile longer... no more debating myself, at least on this issue. I'll need to find another excuse for posting pictures). We sorted peanuts into 10 piles of 10. We counted them by 10's to find out we had a hundred peanuts. We laid out 10 peanuts and counted by 2's to find out how many were inside. We shelled 100 peanuts and made peanut butter, practicing following a recipe and talking about standard measurments. We served the peanut butter on bread that we sliced in half, then in quarters... intro to fractions.

We finished our history narration, map work, and coloring page for Hammurabi. The kids like Hammurabi. They do not like Sargon and Shamshi-Adad.

We went to the park and did a field study for our science curriculum. We discussed living and non-living things, looked at dirt under a magnifying glass, and drew some pictures of what we found. J and K both LOVED drawing pictures of roly poly bugs!

We also read tons of books today... Aesops fables (does Aesops need an apostrophe? I keep staring at this and just can't decide), Angelina Ballerina, The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story, and a few others.

We did some free painting. And then did a painting project to wrap up our Monet lesson. We got the idea here. Here are a few pics from our painting session (note: if you try this at home, masking tape stuck to the construction paper and was really hard to remove. Letting the paint dry all the way and then removing it really slow helped alot)

W had lots of fun with the painting. We had to rename his Rudolph, though!

J worked hard and carefully.

He made sure to include a flower garden (the purple spots at the top)

and a water lily in the bottom corner)

K was really excited (and couldn't stop smiling for the camera)

Here is her finished project

And then we got the whole house clean, mopped the kitchen, got the laundry done, the kids folded socks, J folded W's pajamas (I know... I was shocked... J NEVER voluntarily does work LOL) and everyone had a bath before we had our family night!!

For Family Night, we watched The Tale of Depereaux. It was cute, though a bit intense for my crew. But it's a sign of my new obsession... Redbox. Seriously... I can go to Walgreen's and rent a movie and it only costs me one dollar! This is dangerous folks! Do you hear me, dangerous!!!! Think of all the movies I can rent, for less than my late fees when I inevitably return my DVDs late to the library (the late fee is $2... highway robbery). We watched Bolt from the Redbox the other night, and whole new realms of movie rental possibilities opened up for me. I had visions of all the amazing things we could watch together. I tried to justify renting movies by reminding myself that the kids watch so little TV anyway. But really, it's a slippery slope folks. If I start renting movies more than once or twice a week, someone reel me in. :)

Just Because

I don't have anything super interesting to blog about, but I'm trying to blog more often, so this is what you get! :)

I am actually in the throes of a dilemma over moving the kids up to the next level of math in an effort to keep them challenged. The alternative is to keep them in their current levels and work with the theory that "repetition leads to mastery" and use the easier lessons to help them build discipline in their studies.

But man, I am tired of arguing with myself about it! So if anyone has wise words of wisdom I'd love to hear them. Otherwise I will continue looking through old photos in an attempt to disctract myself. And in the meantime, I leave y'all with these:

J and K, Halloween 2005

(J is Max from Where the Wild Things Are

and K is (what else) a Fairy Princess)

J and W, Fall 2008

K, newborn, Sept 2004

J and his first set of wheels, Oct 2005

J, proving he's always been cute, Spring 2003

J being "helpful" with K, Fall 2005

K's "being pretty" obsession started early, Jan 2006

Summer Homeschooling Plans

We're one of those freakish homeschooling families that does things our own way because, well, we can. No, actually, it just took us a long time to figure out what will work (from a curriculum stand point) and we're still working out the kinks. And because of fall birthdays (have I mentioned that all five of us have birthdays within six weeks of each other?) and other holidays in the fall, we figure we'll start our new schooling each January and wrap up around September... leaving us free to do a light schedule (probably holiday-type unit studies) for the fall and early winter.

So... while everyone else is winding down for summer break, we're just hitting our stride.

I know I have waxed poetic over my love of Ambleside Online... I think I'm over it. I do love the lesson plans and the literature selections, but it doesn't seem complete enough to me. So it's back to the beginning. We're taking what we liked from Ambleside, combining it with what we liked from The Well-Trained Mind, sprinkling in a few random things, and calling it a (school) day. So how do I celebrate? I bought a science curriculum! How cool is this?!?! Starting Monday, we'll be doing science, along with our regularly scheduled programming, three days a week. We're using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, level one. It looks really cool and pretty thorough. I can't wait. So our newly revised new schedule is below. I feel like I do a "new" schedule every week or two... I think I have a short attention span... wait, what was I saying... oh, schedules, right... here it is, more for my own benefit (seeing it in print makes it official, know what I mean?) than for anything else, though I hope it is at least a bit interesting to others.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday will continue to be school days, and days where we don't use the car. This is regardless of Owl Poppa's wacky work schedule (probably our biggest roadblock in developing any kind of homeschooling routine). Every school day, we'll cover the following:

• Math for J and K: J is still in Saxon 1 and K is in Saxon K. I am thinking of bumping them to the next levels without finishing our books first... we're all a little bored. Waiting for the routine to kick in before making this decision. I am also thinking of mixing up the format a little, separating the math meeting and the math lesson. (One quirk of Saxon math is that the teaching is separated into two sections, a meeting that covers review, calendar skills, and some other stuff (<---how do you like that technical description) and then a lesson that introduces new topics and ends with a review sheet). Still pondering this, and will probably do a bit of trial and error to see what works.
• Reading for J and K: Continue on with Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Deferring the decision on what will follow until until we're actually done.
• Copywork: Continue as we've been.
• Poetry: We're giving up A Child's Garden of Verses. None of us are really enjoying it. We'll probably move on to Mother Goose and then A.A. Milne.
• Story of the World (SOTW): We're working at an erratic pace. Lately, we've been listening to the CDs in the car. We might listen to 3 or 4 chapters at once, and repeat this every time we go somewhere. The kids are really enjoying history like this, since it seems like a story, and they are retaining what they are hearing. Our summer plan is to continue this way, following what's interesting. During school days, we'll go over review questions for the chapters we've listened to, and coloring pages, mapwork, and narrations for their notebooks. We'll also continue to read the literature tie-ins. I am reserving the right to limit hands-on artsy projects if the kids don't seem interested or it seems like it will be too much mess (c'mon, people... I need to be practical here).
• Aesops Fables: Continue reading one or two fables per day. Once we finish our book, we'll probably move onto mythology (it should be about the right time in our history studies anyway)
• Science: We'll start the REAL Science Odyssey book and work through one chapter every two or three days.
• Composer Study and Artist Study: We'll continue to incorporate our literature-based composer and artist study. We're starting Bach and Degas, and will then cover Joplin (Scott not Janice) and Cassat (who's birthday was yesterday).
• Nature Study: I am also commiting to doing the Outdoor Hour challenges laid out here. Not sure when we'll fit them in, but fit them in we will!!

Now that you are all bored to tears, assuming you've actually slogged through this far, I will leave you with a great quote (I'm not beyond bribery, lol):

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
---John W. Gardner

ETA: I went back and added the link for the Nature Study website. It's worth checking out since it's totally cool!

Schooling Never Stops

Owl Poppa and J are watching the basketball game... at least the game is on. Right now they are involved in a deep discussion about advertising and how it tries to trick you into buying things! I love it!

New Schedule

As you can read about here, I am considering staying home more often. As soon as I typed it out, I realized it was something I really needed to give more attention too. For many reasons. I hate driving around all the time. It is easy to lose touch with J and K when we are on the run all day. We're not really interacting much because we're busy doing whatever it is we're doing.

So last night I took a good look at our schedule and decided on a few changes. I am shortening our school week to just three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be school days. On those days we'll just stay home... no car usage (unless dh is home and has plans). There is a park in our neighborhood we can walk to, we can find time for the nature study I have been trying to incorporate, and we can have time at home to just do nothing.

Tuesday and Thursday are our park days anyway, so they will be days off from schooling. J has capoiera on Tuesdays, and once K is done with her ballet recital, she wants to switch to capoeira. So I will only have one "class" to drag kids around to. Any errands can be accomplished on Tuesday or Thursday, or else saved for the weekend.

It all sounds good in theory. We'll see how it goes.

Is there such a thing as nothing to do?

Man, we finally finished the last of the dental appointments... I am refusing to go back til we are due for checkups... five and a half months of dental office freedom! But I still feel like we are so BUSY! J has capoeira once a week. K has ballet once a week and is practicing for her first recital. We have homeschool park day once a week... twice if we catch up with our other homeschool group. And there is still all the other stuff to be done out of the house... groceries, visiting, spontaneous park trips, field trips, etc. And none of this includes the stuff we need to do inside the house... like laundry, school work, dishes, laundry, cooking, laundry... :)

I am seriously thinking of overhauling our whole schedule to try to keep all appointments, playgroups, out of the house commitments etc. to just one or two days a week. I think I will make it a personal challenge to just not use my car a few days a week. Hmmmm.... still mulling this one over. Anyone have words of advice, wisdom, reality check?

Meanwhile, back on the ranch

I have been neglecting my blog... I know, shame on me :) I just throw all my deep thoughts out there and then disappear for awhile :) I've just been so busy with LIFE lately. We are still in the midst of a billion appointments (well, maybe not QUITE that many) and our schooling is all over the place. J and K are still making progress, but I am feeling kinda slacker-ish about it. I do believe that it is just too much to ask one momma to get three kids to a 9:30 AM appointment (at the dentist, yikes) and still fit schooling in.

But, since we have finished week 5 of our new schooling program, I feel like it's time to take a break from the deep parenting thoughts (there are more.... I seem to have an endless supply of them, but I'll hold off on posting them) and focus on some school-y stuff for a few minutes. I still love having a lesson plan, even if we don't follow it strictly. For the rest of this twelve week term, I would like to find ways to stick a little more closely to the schedule. I am also hoping to add in a few things. Here are the things that are working well (I will make a bulletized list, because then y'all can admire how neat and orderly I am, lol... it's all just a front people):

• I have stopped thinking that there is any possibilty I can teach the kids Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I was a Classics major, folks. Dead languages only, please. So, we are focusing on some cute books that are in English with a few Spanish vocab words sprinkled in. These make nice read alouds, and give the kids a few vocab words in context. We like these books by Ann Whitford Paul and Ethan Long.
• We're enjoying the really short reading lessons in Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Both kids are making a great deal of progress and aren't hating the process. YAY!
• School first thing in the morning is great! On days when I think we will save school for the afternoon, we just never get around to it. Since what we're doing is so literature based, we just snug up on the couch and get to it. Nice. We keep the basket of school books on the end table.
• For composer study, we finished with Mozart and now we are learning about Beethoven. The kids are really enjoying Beethoven Lives Upstairs from the Classical Kids series. This is a reading of the book by the same title, set to Beethoven's music. The kids ask for it over and over in the car. I love how very literary it is, weaving facts about the composer into a very interesting and engaging story. We are also listening to this. (we've been in the car so much lately, we may as well make use of it) This CD is nice (especially since I bought it for a penny plus shipping) but I do wish it had the 9th symphony on it.
• For artist study, we finshed up with DaVinci (J LOVES DaVinci) and we are learning about Monet. I have a few postcard sized prints we have looked at, but mostly I am again trying to keep it literary. We have read a few cute books about Monet, and the kids are able to recognize Impressionism. I am reminding myself that this is really only meant to be an introduction, so I am trying to keep it fun for them.
• We have really slowed our pace for History. We are reading through Story of the World, but taking more like two weeks per chapter, instead of one. This is giving us lots of time to think over the topic, and to include lots of related literature. J especially is enjoying this, and really living the material so I think we'll stick with this slower pace for awhile, even if we don't get through the whole book this year. I am happy to see him excited over learning about the first people, and about ancient Egypt (so far).

And now for the list of things I'd like to work on... more bullet points... YAY!

• I can really see the value in doing a weekly, Charlotte Mason-styled nature study, but I just can't seem to fit it in. I need to brainstorm a way to make this happen.
• I have already mentioned that I would like to stick to our lesson plan a bit better. This isn't just for me, just so I can see us making progress. I think the kids need the structure, too! I think it is important that they see that education is something we value enough to put a priority on. Now if only we could get done with all these appointments... SIGH! I think we will be finished by the end of April.
• Memory work: I would like to have each of the kids learn a poem by heart, and then recite it at the end of the term. We are reading through A Child's Garden of Verses and haven't really been inspired by anything. We may just break out the Mother Goose. J, in an effort to avoid work, made up his own poem... it never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which he will go in an effort to NOT do what is asked! :) But for those of you who are reading this and are my IRL friends, be forewarned... you will probably be invited to the end of term recital.
• PE: My kids are very active creatures (I know some of you are laughing because that mght just be the biggest understatement of the year) but I would like us to do an activity each day that is mom-directed. Something where all of us are doing the same activity at the same time. We have plenty of outside toys and games, it is just a matter of prioritizing this.

Well, that fairly well wraps up my summary of where we are after 5 weeks and where we are headed. I can't promise I'll have more time to post... I am trying to be more emotionally present to my family and those two things seem to be mutually exclusive.

Keepin' It Real

This has NOT really been a good week. I am trying to focus on the things that have gone well, but to keep it real, I will out myself here. I have been so impatient with the kids... and they have been, well, less than cooperative would be the nicest thing I could say. We also got very little school work done this week or last because of appointments, Easter stuff, and general life getting in the way. We're not to far off our schedule, but I FEEL like we are, and I hate that feeling.

After the dental visits we had this past week, both big kids will have to go in for MORE fillings. I can't figure out what else I can do to keep them from getting cavities... we brush, floss, use the special stuff the dentist gave us... what else is there. And now this means we are looking at a further rearranging of our schedule because we need to fit the appointments in before the end of the month. We're going to end up doing most of our "home" schooling in waiting rooms and in the car.

I am so frustrated because it feels like these things are beyond my control, and I LIKE being in control :) And with the chronic sleep deprivation, I am just irritable. I am cranky, and whiny, and not patient AT ALL. It's my own attitude that I am bringing to the situation that is the biggest problem. But especially since I just posted about loving our schedule and lesson plan so much, I feel the need to stay honest and say that the schedule isn't being used much at all. The lesson plan, however, is still helpful :) At least I can see where we are supposed to be on the map, even if we're taking a detour.

Thoughts on Lesson Plans

I always knew we would homeschool. Pretty much from the minute we planned to have children, we planned to homeschool those children. Homeschooling tied in nicely with all the other uncoventional ideals and ideas we have here in the Owl Nest. And I always knew I never wanted lesson plans. You can't put me in a box... don't try to tell me what to do... blah blah blah. It was all just too much structure for this free-spirited momma to handle!


And so we began our homeschooling adventure in earnest this past fall. I was in love with the Well-Trained Mind, and the philosophy of Classical Education. So that is what we set out with. I had beautiful binders laid out for each subject, everything neat and organized waiting to be filled with proof of my children's superior education. The problem was, what should we fill those binders with? I had no idea what lessons to cover when. I found that for all my rebellion and free-spirited resistance to structure, I really really needed someone to boss me around and tell me what to do! And not in a broad over-arching kind of way, but in a day to day, minute to minute kind of way!


So after floundering awhile, then taking a long schooling hiatus, we recently began again. We are using the Ambleside Online curriculum. And the best part about it (besides that it is free) is that there is a lesson plan. YAY! Someone to tell me what to do so I can tell the kids what to do! It is narrow enough that I know what we are doing and where we are headed. But broad enough that I can schedule our weeks the way I need them to go. I really can take the best of it and make it work for my family. Hooray! I love knowing what we need to acomplish this week. And being able to use the weekly checklist I made up to be sure we haven't forgotten anything. You can view our weekly plan here.


Now, in all honesty, I probably could have done this myself with the Well-Trained Mind guidelines. But it would have involved many man-hours (mom-hours?) that could be better used doing other things. Like sleeping. The lesson plan frees me up from last minute scrounging around trying to put together something cool for the next day. No more late nights planning out cool projects that the kids ultimately don't want to do anyway. Now, I don't have so much of my ego tied up in it, which is probably better for all of us. When they reject the cool things on our schedule, it is ME personally that they are rejecting. And I love not being overwhelmed with too many choices. There is no super-long debate with myself about which book might be better on anyone particular topic. It's all laid out for me. And I know we're actually making progress toward the bigger picture. This is important since I have a tendency to get lost in the minutiae... the whole "forest for the trees" issue.

Here are a few highlights of what's working so far:

• The kids are thriving with short lesson-times. We do focused work for a short amount of time. And you know what, they are really remembering what we have covered. And we moved on to a new subject before they get totally fried on what we were doing. Part of the problem I was falling into before was that I figured if some were good, more must be better. We were trying to do WAY too much at a time in any one subject and everyone was burning out. Especially the momma who was losing her patience trying to get through "one more" of whatever we were working on.
  
• We are also really focusing on narration. Because my schooling kids are young (6 and 4) we are keeping the narrations short. So after we read a passage, or maybe a few paragraphs of a longer passage, we take a break and they tell me back what just happened. This really does seem to increase their comprehension, by helping them to really own the material.
  
• Shorter lessons means school is over in a timely fashion so we have lots of time left in our day for play, impromptu get-togethers, and spontaneous trips to the park (yay for spontaneity, says the free-spirited momma).


• I still feel happy with the eclectic assortment of things we have added into our homeschooling days. So even if I am using a lesson plan, at least I can still claim to be eclectic. That's one less box for me! :)

I won't pretend that this will work forever, or that I'll feel so sunshiny about it later. But I know that for now, we have stumbled upon something that is really working for us. And we have a lesson plan to keep us on track!

Rainy Day Fun

Otherwise entitled, How Can We Pass The Time on a Rainy Day With No TV


Otherwise otherwise entitled, A Nearly Exhaustive Look At Our Day


This morning it was raining again. Not gentle rain like on Tuesday. Today we had a terrific downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. We HAD planned to work in the back yard today... SIGH I guess plans change. It was dark and gloomy, so we lit candles and snuggled up for some good books. But we all knew that could only last so long. And it was only last night that I announced to the kids that we would be keeping the TV off during the day from now on. YIKES


So what to do with three super active kids on a rainy day? Why, indoor bowling of course! We set up our little foam bowling set, and took turns bowling down the hallway.




Next up was lunch -- soup served in tea cups with tortilla chips on the side. During lunch, we read aloud from Little House In the Big Woods. So of course naturally we then had to play Little House.


And then K and I settled in on the loveseat to finish attaching Bianca's hair. Bianca is the Waldorf doll I made for K for Christmas. She'll get her own post complete with pictures at a later date. But due to running out of yarn, and waiting for a new ball of yarn to arrive, Bianca's hair has been incomplete. And today seemed like the perfect time to fix that. K helped, J watched, and W tried to jump on us repeatedly.


Somewhere in there we also played a few board games, did all of our lessons, baked two loaves of bread, baked a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread and a batch of rolls, made a pitcher of iced tea, emptied the dishwasher, got dressed, had some snacks, folded and put away yesterday's laundry (oops), and started another load running.


And just when I thought we might run out of things to do... the sun came out. The sky is a perfect blue with not a cloud in sight!!!! What happened to the ferocious storm of this morning? If it wasn't for the muddy ground and lingering puddles, I almost wouldn't believe it. So into the car to pick up our CSA share and let W take a nap... we had been postponing this (the car trip, not the nap) because the wet weather seemed dangerous for driving. And now that we are home, the boys have tumbled out of the house to go play in the mud, K is playing with chalboard in the garage, and I am about to go fix supper (chili and cornbread, yum).


So, we all survived, and we managed to keep the TV off too! Whew!

Monday Morning Blues

and reds and purples. :) The kids spent the later part of the morning coloring pictures of Set and Osiris, after reading a little bit about Ancient Egypt for History today. W mostly colored on himself.

And speaking of colors, Owl Poppa is home today, and spending the afternoon planting flower bulbs in the front flower beds. It's going to look so pretty when he is done.

I'm off to finish my over-ambitous garage organization project, trying to create an indoor play space for the kids, for when it finally gets too hot to play outside. It's one of those projects where you have to rip everything out, making a huge mess, before you can get the organizational part done. Unfortunately, I'm only as far as the Huge Mess Stage, and it's been that way for two weeks at least. Owl Poppa is a bit unhappy about having to dodge so much junk just to put his work shoes in the garage. So, I am going to work diligently this cool and breezy afternoon and try to finish it up for him.

Maybe I'll post pics of the finished project later (there will be NO before photos though. It is really that bad out there).

Weekly Update

This was our first week back to school after an extended break (again). We are starting out this time around using an organized curriculum and lesson plans (we're using a modified version of the Ambleside Online Curriculum, more on this later), and things are going very well.

I am actually a little bit shocked.

My hero, um... I mean, my good friend, Dawn inspired me to sit and think about what I wanted our weekly schedule to look like. I tried to be realistic about what we could actually accomplish, and to leave plenty of time built in for transitions, reistance, chasing W out of the crayons, and the other "real life" things that crop up when you are trying to do anything constructive with 3 children ages 6 and under.

After a week of implementation, I think we have something that will stick. YAY!!!! And we are able to get all of our academic pursuits taken care of by noon. Which leaves time to fix lunch and eat in time for W to go down for a nap at 1.

For anyone curious enough, our schedule looks something like this.
"School" in the a.m. Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. Wednesdays are not school days, since J has capoeira on Tuesday nights and K has ballet on Wednesday mornings.

Daily work includes:
Poetry
Aesops Fables
Math - J
Math - K
Reading Lesson - J
Reading Lesson - K
Copy work - J
Copy work - K
Spanish vocab
Daily Read Aloud Assignment

After a quick snack, and a chance to play outside, we then do one more "special subject":
Monday is History
Tuesday is Artist Study and Composer Study
Thursday is Park Day
Friday is Science Project
Nature Study is whenever we can fit it in

It really looks like alot all typed out like this, but all the lessons and reading selections are very short. We have been starting in around 9, and finishing up around noon, with lots of breaks. And since we are doing Math and Reading lessons separately, whoever is not with mom is having a chance to play outside or do quiet activities inside.

And I am just so pleased at the progress I've seen in just this week, especially with J. I think the schedule is agreeing with everyone. And the best part is, Owl Poppa is happy too!

Home? Schooling?

My goals for this blog experience are (to quote myself): "to share some of my general thoughts on general things, and to capture some of the moments we share during our homeshcooling days." I seem to have found time for the former, so it's time to address the latter.

But man, there doesn't seem to be much HOME or much SCHOOLING going on around here lately.

At the moment, my only goal is to have each of the kids do their reading, math, and writing four days a week. And even that has been a big struggle. For one, we're just not HOME much. Owl Poppa has an erratic work schedule that means he is frequently home during the week, and gone on the weekends. So when he is home, we are running errands, hanging out, and trying to do all the things that are too hard for me to do alone with three kids. And then of course we want to spend time together as a family. Formal desk work seems to take a back burner too often. And we're all recovering from colds, a bout of flu, and terrible cedar fever. So even when we're forced to be home, we're more convalescant than academic.

We're also facing alot of resistance from J. He doesn't want to willingly do anything that seems like work. I certainly don't want to be neglecting his education. But I don't want to rob him of his love of learning in the name of discipline, since instilling a love of learning is one of the reasons I want my children home with me. Left to his own devices, he is still learning... history, practicing math skills, building things in the yard (engineering?), and "reading" (looking through books, though he is not at all fluent with the decoding yet). But I still feel like we should be doing something more formal for him.

Starting tomorrow, I am planning to move our book work back into the forefront, since Owl Poppa would like to see them do something constructive each day. Maybe I'll have more to report later.