Homeschool Speedbump

...or maybe Homeschool Sabbatical, I'm not sure yet. As you may recall, for several weeks now I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed. There is a little Catholic school within reasonable driving distance of our house--sometimes we go over there for Mass, when we feel like it. I haven't been able to get this little school out of my mind, so finally I just called them up and last week the kids and I went for a tour.

We all liked it. A lot. And it turns out that they are on a trimester schedule and would welcome us (meaning the kids, not me!) for the last third of the school year, which starts March 9.

We haven't decided for sure--I actually have a little meeting scheduled tomorrow with a very wise priest who can help me sort this out--but it is certainly looking like the three oldest kids will be going to school for the next 12 weeks. The thing is, I do believe this is God's will, for now, and I really have that peace about it. I'm hoping Fr. will help me to be sure of this tomorrow.

I am only thinking of this as a break, and we'll be back to homeschooling in the fall. "Like going to day camp," I told the kids, and I was honest about my plans with the school, too.

I'm only a teeny bit afraid that this is a colossal mistake. Actually, surprisingly, I think it's kinda perfect. This is good for each of them, each for his/her own reason, and it's very good for me, for many reasons. It will be good for JPD and MPD, and probably best of all for my dear Bill, who needs more of my energy than he's been getting.

If you find this shocking, well, so do I. I'm not one to make rash decisions like this. But I guess I can do it when necessary! I do love homeschooling so and I will miss having everyone home so much! I really just need to breathe, just for a while, if that makes sense. I'm most looking forward to taking the baby for long walks in the stroller this spring, just the two of us. I have always done that with every child, and I do love it, and I desperately need the exercise, and long stroller walks have been an impossibility while homeschooling. I am also looking forward to a massive spring cleaning and organization for our home, which is sorely in need of it.

Of course I'm scared that we will all like this school so much that we will want to continue there. I'm also scared that only some of us will like it, so that there will be a lack of consensus about whether to homeschool again--ugh. But I'm hoping that it will make us all realize that although school is nice, we miss homeschooling and will more fully appreciate the wonderful opportunity it gives us to be together all day every day!

I can always hope, right?!

Thy Will Be Done!!!

Cheesy Science

This week we learned that while minerals consist of one, pure substance, rocks combine more than one ingredient. Who knew geology could be so tasty?

Journey to the Center of the Earth

I promise, in our homeschool we do plenty of workbooks--spelling, math, grammar, you name it. But science always seems to give the best photo ops!

Today we learned about the composition of the inside of the earth by making individual pizzas with different ingredients for the inner core, outer core, mantle, and, uh--crust.

And the winner is...

not WWD. But we are bustin' with pride that he came in 2nd in the Homeschool Geography Bee! The Bee, which is organized by National Geographic, is for 4th through 8th grades, so this is his first year to compete. He was not too sure about it, and we didn't know what to expect. I think he had fun.

Here are some of the questions he answered correctly:

1) Which state does not have a coastline on Delaware Bay--Virginia, Delaware, or New Jersey? (answer: Virginia)

2) Myrtle Beach, which has been a resort town since the early 1900s, is located in which state? (answer: South Carolina)

3) In September 2008, Hurricane Ike made landfall as a strong Category 2 storm and devastated the city of Galveston, located on the coast of which state? (For all you Texans--this was actually a question in the finals, and everyone in our group did NOT get it right!!)

4) Mexico City is located on the site of Tenochtitlan, the island capital of what empire that was conquered by Spanish explorers in the 16th century? (answer: Aztec Empire)

And here are some of the questions he missed!

1) The Big Sioux River forms the border between South Dakota and which state locatd to the east? (correct answer: Iowa; WWD's answer: Minnesota)

2) Wapusk National Park, located on the southwest shore of Hudson Bay and home to one of the largest polar bear denning areas in the world, is in which Canadian province? (correct answer: Manitoba; WWD's answer: Newfoundland, I think)

3) Brisbane and Perth are ports on which continent? (answer: Australia; WWD's answer: Europe)

4) Architectural remnants of colonial rule and a grid street pattern are signs that Santiago was founded by the Spanish. Today, Santiago is the largest city in which country? (answer: Chile; WWD's answer: Brazil)

So you get the idea--fun trivial pursuit-type stuff. They have some more fun sample questions on this website. And just wait till next year, when MRD will be giving him some tough competition! :) Maybe we'll have to have a family bee of our own to see who moves on to the city bee...

Are my children too sheltered?

From The Homeschool Corner:

Clearly there is an appropriate kind of sheltering. When those who are opposed to homeschooling accuse me of sheltering my children, my reply is always, 'What are you going to accuse me of next, feeding and clothing them?'
~ R.C. Sproul Jr.

Bake Sale Bliss

Yesterday our homeschool group had a nice little pre-holiday* gift fair, and in order to satisfy our family's ever-eager penchant for creating and consuming baked goods, we suggested a bake sale table. It was great! We had so much fun baking all day Sunday, and I was so proud of my busy little entrepreneurs yesterday at the sale. In the end we earned $101 for the Thanksgiving Community Meal Program here in town, and all those recipes and all that change-making were great little real-life math lessons, too.

When I asked MRD about her favorite part of running the bake sale, I expected her to say baking--perhaps sneaking chocolate kisses from the cookies, licking the beaters, or test-eating cookies--or selling all those goodies, or even making the poster, which was quite a work of art. Nope, none of the above--it was counting up all the money at the end! My little capitalist! :)




* By "holiday" I mean Thanksgiving and Christmas, not a non-specific wintertime festival.

Two Little Ingalls Girls (by MRD)

Today me and my sister went to our nature center for a pioneer program. I got to dress like a pioneer! First we went on a hike, next we went to the pioneer cabin and learned the school rules for pioneer children then we played school and had a spelling bee and guess what .... I won! Then we made butter and bread it was so good. While the bread was cooking we did the laundry it was sooo much fun (and I mean it!)!



Here's the recipe for the biscuits the pioneer girls made.

Viking Invasion!

In our studies of medieval history, we're up to the Vikings.
Today we made Viking boats...


and Viking bread.
It was pretty yummy.

Science Takes to the Air

Our airport field trip this week triggered an impromptu afternoon of air- and flight-related science experiments. Each student led one experiment.

Here we are testing racecar aerodynamics:


"Must...get...tasty...racecar..."

Discussing rising air currents and discovering that mobile shapes twirl faster when placed above a heat source:

Making a hot-air balloon to think about heat rising:
(This one was JPD's but he was camera-shy.)

Investigating what happens to a glass-enclosed candle in water (when the flame goes out, the water rises inside the glass!):

Making spinning helicopter blades to discuss how the air currents work:

This was a detour from our "regular" curriculum, but it still fit in well with our science theme of "Earth and Space." All these easy and cool experiments came from the book "Air, Wind, & Flight", from the library.

I am so not ready for this

...but we definitely had snow flurries going on today. The kids were jumping for joy. This year, I couldn't even pretend to be as excited as they were. It seems like winter just got over! As I've been watching the leaves fall this past week, I've been thinking "No, no! Please don't go!" because it will be six months before the new baby leaves come back out. I am definitely not ready for winter, this time around.

We did get back on our schoolwork track today, finally, after a week of camping and a week of mommy-recovery from camping (I'm ALMOST caught up on laundry!). So that's a bit better. But of course, with Halloween, this promises to be a super-busy week.
Here the kids are having recess in the leaves (can you see the snow flurries?!).JPD, future hockey guy:And look at this big boy, working on doing his spoon all by himself:

Book Report

I almost forgot to tell you about an INCREDIBLE audiobook that the kids and I listened to in the car on the way back from vacation last week. Maybe you know it: The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. We all loved it--maybe even me the most! WWD had already read it a while ago; I said "HOW could you have read a book this good and not even told me about it?!" (Probably because he was in school, and I hardly ever got to talk to him because he was gone all day and running around to extracurricular activities all evening, but that's another story.)

Anyway, in this book, the boy--William--receives a magical castle and knight for a present from his beloved nanny. He and the knight go on an adventure together to save the knight's kingdom. I loved it because it was exciting, with rich, likable characters and vivid descriptions, and especially, because it absolutely championed the great values embodied in chivalry: honor, generosity, bravery, truth, etc. The book also fit in nicely with our history curriculum theme of the middle ages. (On the way to vacation, we listened to Jim Weiss' recording of the Knights of the Round Table, which we also liked quite a bit.)

Now we can't wait to read the sequel!

Look Who's Doing Long Division!

Go, MRD, Go!
We love you!

Turbo-Schooling

Check out this cool spider web that we found on our playset today!


What a great school day we had!!
Last spring, we started holding school at the library occasionally. We all love it there, and now we're hoping to be library regulars. So this morning we packed up our books and took over the library reading room, which is truly a wonderful spot.

We accomplished a ton: Everyone did grammar, writing, math, and some logic or other puzzles. As part of WWD's writing lesson, we did a read-aloud of the first chapter of Famous Men of the Middle Ages, which was about the Gods of the Teutons. After reading about Valhalla and Thor and the Valkyries (Teutonic angels, it turns out), we came back home for lunch and listened to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries at a very high volume, which we all loved. Then we discussed the fact that composers often get ideas from literature and from religion: "Do we think any famous composers got ideas from Christianity? Maybe? Well it turns out that most of the famous music throughout western civilization was composed with Christian themes in mind"...etc.

Today WWD worked with his supplemental math book called Football Math which is awesome. I can't say enough good things about it. We're using it as a workbook; it's full of trivia and math problems based on football history and statistics and hypothetical solutions. It's targeted towards grades 4-8, so it is perfect. Today we calculated averages by figuring out various real players' yardage per game, etc. This got us into long division with quotients and divisors into the thousands, which is ahead of his regular text, and we hardly even noticed! Perfect, perfect, perfect for him! When he gets a bit older, and gets into Fantasy Football, we will have created a HUGE monster. I can't even imagine how obsessed he will be.

We also completed building our weather instruments today. The rest of our weather science unit will include tracking and graphing weather for the next several weeks, along with discussing how seasons work. Here's a picture of our rain gauge, anenometer, and weather vane:

We also have a barometer from William's last-year work with the Jason project, and a mini store-bought weather station, both of which joined the group after this picture was taken. So now we have a real, live weather station in our back yard!

Homeschool Bliss

YES! We had a great homeschool day! Last year the first few weeks were hard, and this year they have been too--very hard. My veteran homeschool friends have assured me that this is normal, but as I mentioned, I have been kinda losing my mind. Nothing compared to last year, mind you--no one has actually thrown themselves on the floor, refusing to work--but still, I've been a raving lunatic with stress around here.

This morning, all four children (well, those who can walk) woke up at 5:00 a.m. to get a head start on their math, spelling, and logic before I woke up. No kidding. They even brought JPD with them and got him building blocks next to the homeschool table. (Now why won't he ever do that when I'm around? He prefers to throw things, climb onto the table, write on the wrong things with markers, etc.)

"Obviously," you must be thinking, "these are not normal children. She has given them some special homeschool Kool-Aid." Well, not exactly--but if you have some, let me know! :) Actually they were supremely motivated today because Grandma bought them a couple of new computer games and they were on fire to get back to playing Clue on the computer, to which I'd said "no way until you finish school," of course. So that worked well. Except we're all exhausted from the 5 a.m. thing. Perhaps tomorrow we can have the same enthusiasm, just at a little bit later hour.

KLD's reading is going great; I am so proud of her. And I can't remember if I mentioned that MRD has finished over half of her first math book already. WWD is just a champ this year. I am astonished by his maturity and ability to apply himself to his work. Must be all that football, getting his ya-yas out, right? And JPD is quite enthusiastically learning his vowel letter sounds.

They have all been doing lots of writing. MRD and KLD are in a literary analysis/critique club at our library, helping the librarian analyze children's picture books for an award. This has inspired MRD to write and illustrate a children's picture book; she showed me the first two pages tonight. This is a perfect combination of her two favorite subjects--writing and art. Of course I'll post her book when it's finished!

Yesterday in history we read about establishment of monasteries, and a bit about monastic life in the early centuries. Tonight we had a "monk's dinner:" lentil soup with homemade bread, butter (pretending, in monastic life, that it was Christmas so we could have the butter), apple cider (juice), and even a Gregorian chant CD in the background to complete the atmosphere. We attempted to eat in silence, as monks do, but that didn't really work. No surprise there, right?!

Happy School Day!

Today was officially our first day of school.
Here's the gang:And JPD had his first-day-of-preschool orientation. He loved it, and will have a blast there I think.





Most of our academic work took place in the afternoon, because we went out for haircuts and new shoes in the morning after JPD's school visit. We are all quite excited about the new shoes, of course!
Back at home, our wonderful piano teacher, Paola, arrived for lessons. While each child took turns having their piano lesson, the other two took turns working with me on language arts.
Then they each did math independently. KLD's regular math book is already missing (aaaaaauuuugh!) so she worked in a Disney Princess math workbook that I picked up at the grocery store. In First Language Lessons, she memorized and illustrated the following sweet poem:

The Caterpillar
by Christina G. Rossetti

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk.

May no toad spy you,
May the little birds pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.

Here's her illustration:
She also worked with MRD, cutting and pasting pictures of "noun" words into their grammar workbooks. Meanwhile, WWD cranked out a couple of lessons in his math book and completed his first spelling lesson in our new spelling books.

Then we all went outside to play--too hot, so back in for bathtime and a movie! :)
So far, so good...
(but in case you're wondering, I am NOT much more "ready" for school than I was on Friday. Oh well!)

You Know What?

Maybe part of the solution to yesterday's woes is that I need to just ratchet down my need for lesson planning. If I go to the trouble of planning out the whole year down to the day/hour for each subject, then what? Of course: I'll just stress out trying to follow the plan, and we'll already be either ahead or behind, after, like, the first 30 minutes.

The thing is, we have awesome curriculum materials. Too many, but that's for another post. If we just start on them, and work on them as best we can, everything will be fine. All the kids will cover lots and lots of good material. Homeschoolers always worry about gaps, but the thing about that is--how can you possibly not have gaps? People learn all different kinds of stuff at different rates.

Today I started working with each of the school-agers on our First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease materials. KLD learned what a noun is--not much, but not bad for the second day of first grade, right? MRD worked on perfect capitalization and punctuation, and WWD practiced paragraph writing.

Everyone did a bit of independent reading and piano practice. And we started our new science curriculum with a unit on temperature and how thermometers work. See us? :) (sorry we're a bit blurry.)
Meanwhile, our schoolroom is still messy. We just worked upstairs today mostly. And guess what I'll be doing over the Labor Day weekend...

History and Grammar and Math--Oh My!

Well, this is our homeschool orientation week. I'm just calling it that because the kids and I REALLY wanted to start this week, but I'm not at all prepared, so we're just working together on organizing the school room and putting together binders and so on. Each day I'm starting them on one or two of their new books, with the idea that we'll start full force next week. Sounds pretty good, right?

I think I am losing my mind! This is too hard! I'm not sure I can do it! Honestly, what am I...NUTS? Why do I think I can homeschool 3 grades plus a partially-potty-trained preschooler and an infant? While simultaneously doing all our laundry, food shopping, cooking and food prep, bill paying, house tidying (okay, not actually cleaning--that one I do outsource), nail cutting (100 finger and toenails, not counting my own!), enjoying time with Grandma, etc. etc. etc.?

Picture me, sitting on the floor in our basement schoolroom amidst piles of workbooks, binders, and papers, trying to help MRD with a logic problem, with KLD on my left, asking me about her math, and WWD right behind MRD, teasing us both that he's already got the answer to the logic problem, and JPD--who I JUST got started on a coloring page--abandoning the coloring page for the much more interesting set of teeny weeny magnetic beads, which he of course spreads all around the rest of us on the floor. Picture all that, and then add the sound of a gigantic poopy diaper, from MPD in his bouncy seat a couple of feet away. Oh, and then the phone rang. This is a true story, and just one chapter.

I'm in a real panic. Several times during the last 48 hours I have almost totally lost it--no kidding--and seriously considered running up to the elementary school and quick signing them up, just so I can have time to take a shower or open the mail. Not only did NONE of my summer organization projects get completed, but I have done NO lesson planning. I was going to clean and organize a lot of things in our house, file and organize and simplify a huge bunch of paperwork, cook and freeze a bunch of meals or at LEAST make a monthly meal plan, and write out plans for at least the first semester of school, just to mention some of my summer ambitions.

I have done NONE of this. None. And now the summer is gone. Of course, I haven't been lounging at the pool with a magazine and a diet coke for the past three months, either. Just nursing, and folding laundry, and nursing, and food shopping, and nursing, and trying to take a shower alone, and nursing, and changing JPD's disgusting poopy pullups, and unloading the dishwasher, and uh...nursing. You know.

Seriously, I forgot how hard this homeschooling thing is. Actually, I've never tried to do it with a baby (we took things pretty easy last spring), without lesson planning beforehand, without organizing our stuff first, and with everyone quite so...excited.

Well, that's the thing. Two days in, they really seem to be loving it. MRD was so disappointed this evening when we had to quit school so I could start dinner. And tonight when WWD came in to kiss me goodnight, his last words were "I love school, Mom!" KLD is fiercely working on her reading, as always. And JPD couldn't be more excited that today he learned the letter sound for "a" and that he has his own workbook for pencil practice. (Don't worry--I promise I am NOT overdoing the 3-year-old academics!)

Last night our homeschool group had a kickoff Mass, which is part of why I figured this would be a good time to start school. It was a lovely Mass, with a homeschool blessing at the end. (Or at least, I assume it was--I was in the back of the church trying to simultaneously nurse MPD and keep up with JPD, trying to make sure he didn't a) run up to the empty balcony or b) climb on the statues or c) run out the door into the downtown traffic.)

But we did get blessed! And obviously, we need it! When I feel as panicked and overwhelmed as I am now, I really can only conclude that God wants it this way. Not, naturally, for me to feel panicked and overwhelmed. But for me to stop trying to do all this stuff on my own steam, and to let HIM run things around here. So now (or I should say 'again'), my prayer is for the ability to listen carefully, to discern each moment how He would have me focus my time, energy, and attention (does this mean I should skip the monthly meal planning?). A perfect reminder for me to heed the words of Psalm 46:10 and "Be still, and know that I am God," right?

There. Now I feel better, thanks! :)

The Baseball Gazette

WWD has been working on a baseball unit study for his summer study this year. He has just finished his final project--a newspaper full of baseball news, features, and puzzles! It is great! To check it out, link here.

Summer Daze

Over the past few days I have realized something: I really miss school. Not being in school myself, like I might go back for another degree or something (as if!). But homeschool with the kids. This summer is just far too busy, and going by way too fast.

KLD agrees with me. Tonight she said, "Mommy, we haven't been reading together lately." And I agreed, and told her my thoughts on missing the school year. She said, "Yes--we never snuggle and read anymore."

Exactly. Now that we don't rush out the door at 7:55 every day during the school year, doing so for swim team every day seems like quite a burden. Just think that in past years, summer was my q-time with the kids; now I feel like I'm hardly seeing them! And I had these visions of continuing with a bit of "light" schooling during the summer--a little math here and there, for example, so they didn't lose ground. Right, like we've had time to do that.

But, to be fair, part of the reason we haven't been reading and talking together so much is that all three of the oldest ones are so obsessed with reading reading reading and audiobooks audiobooks audiobooks, that I just let them be, and take advantage of the quiet time with the two youngest. That is one summer goal that I do feel that I'm doing: One-on-one with JPD. And potty-training isn't a done deal yet, but I would say we have some serious progress in that department (hooray!). And in addition to the reading/audiobooks fanaticism, each of them has a topic of study for the summer: baseball/horses/tennis, respectively. And for the final product, WWD is making a baseball newspaper, which he's quite pumped about and working hard on now. I'm sure you'll be seeing it soon! So that's something in the way of summer school, not to mention that I'm THRILLED with their swimming proficiency and the fun they're having with their golf, tennis, and camps. So I guess it's okay. Well, more than okay, even.

And finally, a JPD story of the day. This morning we went en masse to the grocery store--usually a recipe for chaos, and today was certainly no exception. I lost JPD once or twice, and once I really did. Turns out he was on the far side of the store from me, in floral. I was near the service desk and they'd already heard from the floral staff about this little boy dressed in Longhorn gear: Was anybody looking for him? Well, I was. And when I got over to floral, there he was, with a red rose for me. He'd gone all the way across the store for a flower for his mommy.

I guess today's grocery incident pretty much sums up my life with that precious little guy!