Dale's kindergarten, part 1

Tonight when we gathered with Dale for bedtime prayers he asked if we could turn the calendar that hangs by his bed.

He got pretty excited to see for himself that August starts tomorrow... August is a big month for him! Not only is his birthday later this month, but he starts KINDERGARTEN on Monday and he is pret-ty excited!

And so am I, to be honest. :)

As I mentioned before, this year will be pretty light. Our focal point for the year will be character studies.

Our basic framework for our character curriculum came from this website.
If you have preschoolers and are interested in teaching activities do at home with them, please go give this website a look! I plan on using it with Alan in a year or so.
I used several of the ideas from their Bible and Rhyme curriculum this spring and Dale and I both enjoyed it a lot. There are fewer specifics laid out for the character studies, but it does give a good list of traits and a rough idea of a schedule.

As a supplement, I ordered this book:

It lists 12 of the 18 or so character traits we will study throughout the year. For each one, it gives a definition, and 4 example stories in which the trait was shown or should have been. One story is from the Bible, the other three are about a child in school, at play, and at home. Short, simple, & to the point!

Some of the character traits we will be learning to adopt as our own:

Being Attentive
Obedience
Contentment
Being Creative
Thankfulness
Joyfulness
Being Prayerful

Each one is also accompanied by a memory verse for the week (more on that in a future post) and we will also be looking to children's literature for other examples of these character traits. I plan on blogging about how we will be doing that, too. :)

Greg and I feel that if nothing else academic gets done in our school day, as long as we get our character lesson in we have done well. Of course, we have plans for things like phonics and math (whew... even more planned blogging!), but the character studies will be priority.

It's tough being a kid, at any age.

Alan fell from a dining chair today.

On his face.

Ouch.

I saw him falling and just couldn't get there in time.

*SIGH*

He's all better now. :)

It did bruise, though. Not surprising, since he has taken aspirin every day since his transplant and bruises easily.

I tried to get a picture of the bruise. Because - you know... all good parents take photographic evidence of their children's injuries. Or maybe that's just me?

At any rate, this one hardly shows up at all on camera.

However, Alan took full advantage of being in front of the camera and really hammed it up. He does that you know. He is the ham in this family.

(I'm not sure what that makes the rest of us.)

It's tough to be the big brother, too. Yesterday Dale played a lot with his Lincoln Logs. The best time for this is when Alan is asleep, especially if one intends to do any serious building.

Yesterday afternoon Alan had gone down for his nap and I came to tell Dale it was time for him to rest too.

He showed me the house he had built all by himself, no instructions or anything. He wanted to show Daddy, but Daddy was on the phone.

I told Dale to go ahead and get in bed and when Daddy got off the phone I would tell him to come look.

Guess what?

I forgot. Completely forgot.

Fast forward about 2 hours:

Alan woke up from his nap and we turned him loose the house. May have even told him to go wake up Dale. We do that sometimes.

What usually happens is that Dale wakes up and the two of them start playing.

Yesterday, Alan did eventually disappear down the hallway.

Moments later I simultaneously heard a small crash and a shriek.

Followed by much wailing. In two voices. And I think even an "Al-annnnn!!!"

I didn't even have to go look. I knew.

And I felt really really bad.

Alan recovered almost immediately.

It took Dale a little while, but all was well again by supper time.

An hour in the sprinkler (even with a perpetrator) can do wonders.

Man it's tough being a kid!

Dale-isms

I haven't devoted a whole post to my little buddy lately. And for no good reason either... he sure says enough to earn plenty of blog time!

A couple of my recent favorites...

Dale sometimes calls Mimi (my mom) 'Meems', just for fun.
This weekend:
"Hey! There's Meems! That's her nick-nack name you know."


And another....

Dale has made several new friends lately, one of which is a 4 1/2 year old little girl, S.

Yesterday he tells me:
"Listen to this song S told me:
'Hanky Doodle went to town,
riding on a pony,
stuck a feather in his hat,
and it turned into a monkey!'"

Followed by hysterical laughter, of course. The funny part? S did teach him the monkey part.
But Hanky Doodle? He came up with that all on his own!!

Living the wild life. Umm...make that living WITH the wildlife!

Sunday morning we were between breakfast and getting ready for church when Greg called out, "Whoa! Look in the backyard!"

I couldn't imagine what I might see when I got to the window, but didn't expect to see this:

We're no bird experts, but this appears to us to be a wild turkey!

We're not sure if it flew in or walked in through the gate we'd left open, but he couldn't seem to get out. Greg went out to get a better picture. He followed the bird around a round or two, but before he could get a picture it gave a gobble and flew over the fence into the neighbor's yard.

The temptation was great to call her up and say "look in your back yard!" but I controlled myself. :)

Our weekend so far

I hope you are all having a nice weekend. Ours so far has been a pleasant blend of relaxing and staying busy.

I picked up some new library books for Dale (and myself!) Thursday. Dale decided this box was a good place for reading. :)

We went for Alan's labs on Friday morning. Between our house and the hospital someone has planted several large fields full of sunflowers! When you are driving West in the morning, all the flowers are greeting you with their morning faces. It's so pretty. A picture (from a moving vehicle, no less) can't do it justice, but I had to try. :)


At our house, coloring is something usually done at the table. The boys have gotten into the habit the past few days of dumping out all the crayons in the middle of the living room floor. We're going to have to change that before we have confetti-colored carpet! But in the meantime it is so fun to see them elbow to elbow, coloring out of the same book. :)


They spent some time in Mimi & Gramps' sprinkler yesterday. I'm not sure why Alan looks so hesitant. It didn't take him long to get warmed up to it. Or would that be 'cooled down'? ;)
Dale was already on the run. See?


And then tonight? Watermelon! Alan couldn't believe anything so fun to eat existed in this world. He loved it!

How about you? How are you filling the last weekend of July?

A method for our madness.

I mentioned before that as we began to become familiar with various homeschool methods, one in particular stood out more than the rest.

And that one would be.... (no drum roll, that would be too dramatic, lol)....
the Charlotte Mason approach.

Instead of me giving you all of the formal definitions and histories of Charlotte Mason (a British educator from the 19th century), I'd rather just tell how we are applying her ideas.

However, if you are interested in reading more about Charlotte Mason and her methods, try looking here

or here

or here.

In our homeschool, a Charlotte Mason (CM) perspective means:

- Books. Lots of them, and not just any books.
Even before 'discovering' CM, we were big believers in reading to our kids. I think reading exposes them to more than we can imagine, and probably covers a multitude of shortcomings.

CM takes this a step further by encouraging books that are rich in content. One phrase for these types of books is "living" books. Books that are alive with ideas. CM believed that these types of books (and the characters in them) inspire children in many ways, including planting in them a love of learning. (As opposed to what she called "twaddle" - books with thin content.)

As the years go by, books will play an even greater role in our children's education, as they will be a key element in subjects like history and science. Instead of most of their information coming from a textbook, it will come from biographies and first-hand accounts of things. Information that will come to life in their hands, and hopefully, stick with them and inspire (there's that word again) them to learn more and dig deeper. *SIGH* I always knew I loved books. ;)

- A light kindergarten year.
CM was a firm believer that children under 6 years old should not be overwhelmed with lots of lessons and academics. I agree. There is plenty of time. Instead, they should be read to as much as possible, and spend a LOT of time playing outside. Dale enjoys math and phonics workbooks and things like that, so we are planning on doing some of that. But there is no pressure on him, AND no pressure on me (on me from me, lol) for him to reach certain milestones by certain times. Do we have goals? Absolutely. But priority #1? Being a kid.

- Nature study
Spending lots of time in and becoming familiar with your outdoor surroundings is another big part of the CM method. To notice and observe plants, animals, birds and insects. Many families have their students keep a notebook of their own drawings and writings about these things. Other than spending lots of time outside and "seeing what we can find", I'm not sure yet in what ways we will incorporate nature study into our homeschool, but I'm looking forward to that journey. :)

- Incorporating the Bible
Of all "living books", the Bible is the most important, and the only one that truly is alive! If we do nothing else but study and memorize God's word, we still will have given our kids the best education they could possibly have.
One of the beauties of learning at home is that we can show our kids how God and His word are the beginning, middle, and end of everything else we study. We will able to look at God's hand in history, the sciences, literature... even how He is reflected in the absolute truth of math!

One of the major ways we are incorporating the Bible right now is through memorization. It is amazing to see how much Dale's mind can hold! And guess what? When he memorizes a passage I didn't know before, I learn it too!

- Habits
CM also taught to instill good habits in your children. Many of these help them have the discipline and know-how to educate themselves as they get older. Others give them the skills they need to function and flourish in a family, a church, or society in general. Others will help them draw closer to God, learn more of Him, and be more like Him.

The possibilities are endless as we begin to train our children in good habits. And maybe, like the scripture memory, some of those can 'rub off' on us as well, and we can all grow together. :)

So... there it is, in a nutshell (a very large nutshell), what I've learned so far about Charlotte Mason's teachings and methods and how we plan to apply that in the years ahead. This post doesn't even begin to touch the depth and beauty of all her ideas. However, I am still reading and learning. I know some of our views and practices will change while we grow stronger in others.

In the meantime, excitement is building around here and we are counting down the days until the first day of Kindergarten!! (9 for those of you keeping score at home) ;)

If this is sibling rivalry, Bring. It. On!

I love watching the relationship between Dale and Alan grow and change. It seems to take shape into more and more of a friendship almost weekly.

We expect a few bumps along the way, especially as Alan becomes more of a kid and less a baby. As a baby he accepts a lot easier those times Dale takes away a toy or has other sharing... issues. And he is very agreeable about what to play and how.

However, we have begun to see shades of Alan making his own preferences known at playtime. We like seeing our boys stand up for themselves, though, and we think doing so with each other is good practice. As long as it is done respectfully, and without injury, of course. ;)

As far as sibling rivalry, though, we just don't see an overall jealousy of each other. All of us have our moments. But in general, Alan adores Dale and Dale is caring and gentle towards Alan.

There has been one area where they seem to want to compete, especially Dale. And, well, we're just going to let it be and hope it lasts.

And where do we see this competition? At cleanup time, of all things.

We have been teaching Alan how to do his share and pick up toys. All of a sudden in the last few days, Dale can't seem to stand being outdone by Alan. We tell Alan to start picking up and Dale goes even faster.

Sharing issues, perhaps?

Maybe, but at least it gets the job done, and quickly!

What about your kiddos? Is there much rivalry at your house?