Snippets

Regular ol' school day around here. Everyone seems to be back in regular health except poor Miss B. 

This morning I sent Alan to the other end of the house so he'd have somewhere quiet to read his school chapter. (He's reading Heidi.)  

I said.... "Go lay on my bed" (Which was made, by the way).

This is how I found him:

 Fully clothed. In my bed. Not on my bed.

And two siblings climbing all over him. I shooed them out.

We finished the letter "L" today in our preschool lessons. 
 See my Little Lions? 

This afternoon I came upon Daniel and the cars he had lined up just so. 

He was very proud of his handy work. "It's beautiful!" he said.

Tuesday, December 9

Away in a Manger - again.

Continuing on yesterday's manger theme, today we made a handprint manger craft.

While waiting on the handprints before we could add baby Jesus, we sang Away in a Manger, adding in quite a few ASL signs and motions. 

Sweet and simple today! No pics of the actual crafting...it was pretty hands-on for me!

Monday, December 8

Away In a Manger!

We read Advent Scripture Reading Day 7 - "A Baby is Born!" and colored these sweet pictures of a manger filled with the name JESUS. Today's art supply: markers!

We were also busy organizing our pantry from yesterday's bounty...

 ...cleaning up shattered ornaments...

...and loving on this sweet baby face! 

Happy Monday! (and Happy Birthday to my Daddy!)

Friday, December 5

Today was all about Bethlehem!  Our surprise stocking held watercolor paints and .... the van keys!

We looked at the globe to see where in the world Bethlehem is, then painted pictures of shepherds on the way to Bethlehem. 

We also watched this video, on what the stable and manger were probably really like:

After supper we met up with friends and drove to a church in a neighboring town that was hosting a "Walk Through Bethlehem", an excellent outdoor reenactment of what the streets of Bethlehem might have been like when Jesus was born. The kids (and mama and daddy too) loved it!

And, of course...there were cookies, too.

 Lots and lots of cookies.

Thursday, Dec 4

Today's stocking held a scroll of Advent Day 5 Scripture reading: An angel visits Joseph.

We read how the angel told Joseph he was to name the baby 'Jesus' and we discussed our names - who gave them to us, and what they mean. 

Then we made Christmas trees with letters of our names as ornaments! 

(Dale's is messy because he intended to cut his tree out and I took the pic before he got to that).

December 3

Today was all about Christmas trees!

The stocking was stuffed with our felt Christmas tree and ornaments and an assortment of Christmas tree coloring pages.

I may or may not have grabbed one for myself and colored along.

Alan turned his color-by-number into a puzzle...

We also enjoyed this little youtube gem!

Over and over and over again!

Christmas Countdown Time! December 1

We've done various Christmas activity countdowns over the years, and this year we are back to an old favorite: the surprise stocking. 

Every evening I place an item (or two or three) related to the next day's activity into our countdown stocking. The kids take turns emptying it so everyone can see - or try to guess - what Christmas activity we are doing that day.

Day 1 was filled with paper strips for paper chains. 

The two older boys each made their own 24 link chain to countdown to Christmas.

Tyler and Brooklyn and I worked together to make a chain as long as we could to decorate the kids' tree. 

We also made the Names of Jesus chain. The kids requested we hang it in the shape of a 'J' (for Jesus) and we decided not to tear these off each day, but leave the J. 

Every morning at breakfast we read the scripture passage and a short devotional about that day's name. We haven't done the corresponding activities from that site, but there are years ahead of us. I can definitely picture us doing the names again and including the activities.

Let the countdown(s) begin!

We're all a little strange, I suppose

I went to a ladies' retreat this weekend. We played a "get-to-know-you" game involving individual sized bags of M&M's. You pulled a candy from your bag, and based on the color you drew, answered a question about yourself. 
At some point in the middle of this exercise, the lady to my left asked (quite randomly, I felt at the moment), "Do you homeschool?"
Of course I answered that, yes, I do. She nodded and smiled and pointing to my book on the table in front of me said, "Your M&M's gave you away."
As my turn came around the table and I answered each question, I had lined up my candies like so:

Turns out my new friend had homeschooled her two now-grown boys. So maybe it is true that "it takes one to know one!"

On an unrelated note, that evening I took the whole gang out for a walk to give Greg just a tiny slice of silence since he had been busy with them all day and had gotten Zero studying done. While we were out we circled by the campus playground for a while. Here sits this fine stand of nice, new playground equipment, and what do my kids like to do most?

Run around on the concrete slab, of course! Every. Time.

School Update and Some Random Pics

It seemed to me that it would be a good time to catch up on how school is going around here, so, without further ado, an update on our 2013-2014 school year:

We are absolutely loving Easy Peasy (allinonehomeschool.com). Dale is on track to finish year 5 by the end of May. Which is pretty impressive, considering we didn't really get going on it full swing until January. Among other novels he has read Alice in Wonderland, and is currently working on Little Men. He's developing his writing skills, learning how to write a five-paragraph essay and be aware of creative language and complex sentences. He already  has a whopping vocabulary, so it's nice to start to see that come out in his writing now and then. The biggest hurdle we have with school is quality control. He is able to do most of his work independently, but I have to stay on my toes checking it or things get a little less than his best.

Accidently matching for church a few weeks ago.

Pretty much since the beginning of his "official" school career, Alan has been on a January to December calendar instead of August to May. Which is one of the beauties of homeschooling, really. He has never been behind or ahead, but right on schedule. That hopefully explains the fact that he began his 2nd grade work in January. He will not finish Easy Peasy level two in May, but will be able to complete the work with flying colors in November/December. He is learning a lot of grammar (nouns, proper nouns, action verbs, linking verbs, subjects, predicates). He gets frustrated with me for making him write exclusively in cursive, but his cursive is steadily improving and is already better than his print. 

The look on his face when I asked him Easter Sunday if he wanted go hunt eggs.

After letting Khan Academy fall by the wayside for several months due to web layout frustrations, I decided to check it out again recently, and I'm so glad I did! It's all different, and I love the changes. It's so much easier for me - and the boys- to see what they have done and what they need to do next. Also, lots of lower elementary concepts and exercises have been added, so Alan can do it too. Very, very pleased with that.

We are doing our usual read-through-the-Bible again this year, pretty much the same way we have done all but one of the last 5 years or so. We are currently mid-way through  II Kings, pausing a bit there to cover the prophets. Not sure at what pace I want to proceed through the rest of the Bible, whether to start the New Testament in August and take two years, or pack it all in to finish by early summer. Dale and Alan notebook most of the Bible lessons. They also (Alan particularly) like worksheets printed from Calvary Chapel Curriculum. 

We have covered a few science/history/social studies topics together this year, including animal habitats, Russia / the Olympics (which has made the boys interested in all of the news in Ukraine this spring), and currently, earthquakes.

For Tyler and Brooklyn we have been loosely following Hubbard's Cupboard's Bible and Rhyme curriculum - working our way through major stories of  the Bible and the Alphabet, along with appropriate matching crafts and occasional nursery rhymes. We sometimes sing songs, do hand rhymes, play with playdough, or get out special puzzles and games. We spend about 30 minutes of each day devoted to "Preschool Time." Tyler is ripe for learning to read. Not sure yet when I'll start official "lessons" with him. Meanwhile, Brooklyn has picked up on most of the letter sounds herself.

(I don't think she found any letter sounds in these giant eggs, though.)

I make it a point almost every day to read to Daniel and Brooklyn individually (and often Tyler, too), and then Tyler, Alan, Dale and I spend half an hour in a chapter book. We've read a couple of "Little House" books recently, and currently, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. It's one of my favorite times of day, and I think everyone else's, too!

Back to School

Today marked our second day back into school full-swing since the Christmas break, and, if I'm being honest, since the move! We've definitely had full school days since moving, but we are into something now we can settle in to and get lots done for weeks to come, hopefully.

After over two weeks of no routine or structure, yesterday was ah-MAZ-ing! Then today was a harder day, maybe from adding the 5th kid into the mix? (Alan was gone most of Monday for a scheduled checkup.) At any rate, we stuck with the plan the whole way through both days.

Our day is sectioned into half hour blocks. We try to keep things moving by the clock, but don't sweat it if we get off. It happens. The important thing is to keep marching through the list of things to get done!

I wake Dale up at 6:30 for him to shower and do his "Morning Jobs". He begins his first round of school work after that. Alan is up at 7 for his shower and Morning Jobs while I make breakfast. Daddy gets home from his bus route between 7:30-7:45 and we all have breakfast together before he goes to class at 8.

After breakfast, Dale and Alan have personal Bible reading/devotion time and study their Awanas lessons. Tyler washes the breakfast plates or bowls. I dress Daniel and Brooklyn and then finish the breakfast dishes while Tyler dresses.

We all work together on some cleaning up, particularly the playroom, then have Bible time all together. We are going book by book. We started in Genesis in August and began Joshua yesterday. 

Dale then goes off to notebook that day's Bible story and Alan joins Tyler and Brooklyn and me for preschool time. While I stand by the belief that preschool isn't "necessary" I also believe it is fun and does have a lot of good. A consistent preschool time has been missing in our days since we moved, so I'm really happy to get back to it! We are using Hubbard's Cupboard, a favorite from both Dale and Alan's preschool days.

That brings us up to 10:00am. Are you bored silly yet? I'll spare you the rest for now.  We are all happier being back into a routine and having productive days again. Even so, I may have to make room in the schedule tomorrow for some outside time. It will be the first time in 2 days we've gotten above freezing! Brr! And, construction has begun on the new playground almost outside our back door, so we have to walk over and check that out!

Dec 5

First of all, somebody was super proud of himself for getting a pencil to stand up in a lego block. He did it over and over again!

In the morning we continued reading through "One Wintry Night". Today's chapters covered the fall of Adam and Eve.

Before lunch we all sat down together at the table with our paper and pencils. Following the directions from Art Projects for Kids, we each drew and then colored or own Santas. Here is Alan's:

And I am so disappointed that Dale's seems to have completely disappeared! He put so much into his background and scene setting. It is so very 'Dale'. :)

While we were cleaning up lunch I had the idea to have a spelling bee with Dale and Alan. I left them finishing the cleanup and put together a list of 30 words each for them. I gave them about 10 minutes to study their words, and then we got out our Bible Baseball gameboard. Instead of a bee, we played spelling baseball! Dale and I loved it (for different reasons, lol). Alan - not-so-much. But that may have been because too many of his words were too challenging. We'll definitely be doing this again soon!

Finally, with 33 degree rain closing in, we had an early supper and got into pjs to watch The Polar Express on tv. Complete with hot chocolate - although it was not served with backflips and singing. ;)

Round and round...

The end is in sight.  Once next week is complete we are calling an end to the 2012-2013 school year.  The end is pretty arbitrary, though.  Current math and phonics books were finished weeks ago.  We've only loosely been following our schedule the last few weeks, and our learning will continue to a certain extent throughout our summer break.  It's just what we do.  Nevertheless we all see next week as a closing point and I think I am just as ready - or more so - as the boys.

At a time when I have so much on my plate and on my mind, I am trying to slow down.  Breathe deep.  Enjoy the dailiness of life with these 5 people of varying ages and personalities.

So yesterday morning after our Bible reading and morning routines we ditched the schedule and to-do list and headed for the hills.  Ok, it's not that hilly, but we drove out to the country to check on the garden after the previous day's storm.  We also had a turtle that had been captive in his box in the laundry room long enough.  It was time for a new life for Sammy Turtle.

Before heading to the garden we stopped off to visit with my Dad and Grand-dad.  What a privilege to be able to sit and visit mid-morning on a weekday, a baby in each lap.  Checking the balance scales.... yep....definitely out-weighs "doing school".  

Then it was on to the garden where some of us dodged the standing areas of water from all. of. the. rain., and some of us sloshed right through.  For Tyler, who was wearing his trusty rain boots, that was no problem.  But as I loved on Alan in a brief moment of stillness that afternoon I asked him his favorite part of going to the garden.  "Getting my shoes wet," he answered with a smile.  Wet tennis shoes...again.  They'll dry.  They always do.

Mr. Turtle was released, camouflaged in the brown leaves beneath the oak tree.  Marked with a 'B' (I'll just leave you to wonder about that one) in case we ever see him again.  Bees were watched.  A butterfly observed.  A slilpper squirmy tadpole was caught (and released).  A tiny katydid was spotted and examined.  Slimy mushrooms that looked like squished raisins were plucked.  The garden was explored.  All of this weighed against "doing school"..... and real life wins again.

Upon our return home routines resumed, math worksheets were done, spelling words practiced.  Rooms cleaned, dishes washed.  "Real life" of a different variety, but necessary.

My last slow-moments of the day before the hectic rush of brushing teeth and tucking in and straightening up the messes the whirlwind left behind were spent combing my sweet girl's hair after her bath.  She loves singing and being sung to lately.  She sat with her vintage Fisher Price van in her lap - one little person left to ride - and I combed as we sang "The Wheels on the Bus" over and over and over again.  I'm glad that song has lots of verses anyway!  We'd barely finish one set of "alllll ...through...the townnn!" when she'd be asked for "moe! moe(more) town!"  So off we'd go again.

And here I sit, the verse of yesterday's trip all through the town complete and the wheels on this bus are already going round and round.  I've ditched routine again already just to write this blog post and one little person has woken early and joined me.  We'll proceed with this day, trying to soak up all the good parts, not fret over all the not-so-good parts, looking for balance in all the "real life" - the parts that demand our attention, and the parts that quietly wait for us when we're ready.  And the wheels go round and round....

The Buffaloes Go to Tea

We got together with our homeschooling friends recently for an etiquette tea party.

 First up: a lesson on basic manners and table setting.  (Fork on the left and no elbows on the table, please!)

Then all the kiddos got to choose a tea to sample.  My favorite part was seeing them 'doctor' their tea.  I think every cup had sugar and honey and cream in it.  As far as I know, Tyler was the only one that actually liked his tea.  At least among my crew.  But that's not surprising; Tyler's been begging tea off his Daddy and me for over a year now!

Next up our lovely hostess had prepared an awesome relay-type game to practice a proper table setting.  The kids took turns choosing the proper item from a table of mixed items....

...and racing down to the other end of the porch to place it on another table:

Then it was inside for sandwiches...

...and back out for a game of charades:

For reasons I do not understand, the end of the charades game brought the crew to spontaneous screaming. Maybe it was all the sugar they put into their tea earlier. ;)

Everyone managed to settle down for some yummy desserts, a sweet end indeed to a fun day!