Back at the Books, 4 students this year!

Our first week of school went smoothly and with a few adjustments, I hope to see the rest of the year follow suit. I realized that somehow I'd neglected to get Emma a Language Arts book (I had thought her Creative Writing covered that, but it didn't) and the Phonics I'd planned for Mayda didn't pan out. So the first day of school ended with a quick trip to the Teacher's Corner (they have an online catalog!) to get a few Spectrum books to fill the gaps. They are my favorite stand in. :) This is also the only store where I can find my school assignment charts, and they are cheap too!!! (see how we assign school here.)

This year we mixed up a few things and it is working our better than I'd hoped. Here's the run down:

Tyler is in 5th grade and is using Saxon 6/5 for Math. He is sharing the 5th grade A'Beka history (Old World History and Geography) with Emma. He is also sharing Science with her for part of the year, (A'Beka Investigating God's World) and then will go on to study in God's Marvelous Works (Rod and Staff) for the second semester. They are also sharing a daily devotional and a supplemental Art course from Usborne. We are going through the Art book intensively before an upcoming Art Museum trip. Tyler also has general studies in spelling, language arts, reading comp. and handwriting. Interestingly, after years of terrible handwriting that caused me to hold off on adding cursive, we discovered he has AMAZING cursive and will probably never print manuscript style again. :) Now if we could just get past the creative writing block!!!

Emma is in 4th grade, and is sharing the above subjects with Tyler (History, Science, Bible, and Art.). She is going to stick with Modern Curriculum Press math for one more year before moving in to Saxon. MCP just fits her style better, and I actually found it a more challenging math curriculum than Saxon. That was actually a surprise. She also has spelling and then her writing, language arts, and geography are all from Spectrum. I'm really enjoying Emma and Tyler sharing several subjects. His reading skills and her creativity of thought make for better understanding of the text, not to mention better discussions I don't even have to facilitate.

Mayda is in 1st grade this year. I debated moving her up since we were so hit-or-miss with her Kindergarten last year. It was really hard for her to focus with Wyatt running around having so much fun NOT doing school. :) I was concerned she wasn't reading at a first grade level and she insists she cannot read at all, but when we sat down with her reading comp book, she read like a pro. She now insists she can only read when I am there. :P She is also studying geography (basic maps), Bible, writing, science (Christian Liberty Press, LOVE them for lower grade science!), Spectrum phonics, and math. I may have to find her a harder math book. The 1st grade book we're using is so easy she's already pages ahead of where she should be.

Wyatt is using My Father's World for Kindergarten this year. (Read My Review Here.) Since he only turned 5 yesterday we hardly consider it Kindergarten. At our house we do 3 years of what we call K-1st., since what they are studying could range all the way from K to 2nd and we start at the age of what would be pre-K and just go for it for a little longer. Socially he's still your typical pre-K, although his vocabulary is amazing compared to Tyler and Emma at this age. (I don't compare anyone to Mayda; she's just a completely different bird!)  We like MFW curriculum right out of the box, and while I was worried it would take too long for him to get through each day, it's actually quite easy. We are supplementing the science with selections from CLP science book (aptly named "My Father's World"), and I may pick up a math workbook since the "counting to 100" will be over mid year and is not much of a challenge for him. I'm enjoying the fun approach it has for learning each letter by associating each week with a new letter sound and an animal or concept that begins with it. Since it covers lots of creatures, we are also using the Christian Liberty Press Nature Reader ,and he LOVES that.

I was really worried that I'd spend the year trying to talk to 4 kids at once and lots of chaos, but that hasn't happened at all (yet). Tyler and Emma work together on science and history, only pausing for a quick quiz from me from time to time. During that time Mayda works independantly on math worksheets while I do MFW with Wyatt. When Wyatt is done I do reading comp with Mayda and then switch off on answering math issues with the big kids. Overall we are enjoying it and have mostly been done by noon each day, with lots more reading in the afternoon while the little ones nap.

Hopefully my mid year assessment will be this happy!  To celebrate our first week of school, we went swimming at the lake. It was colder in the water than I had anticipated! hehehe...

Firsts, Lasts, and Always...

As a scrapbooker, I have always celebrated firsts. First haircut, first bath, first smile. I have pictures, stories and pockets full of memories. They are all stuffed into books and overburden my bookcases in the living room. I remember the excitement of each first, they are easy to recognize, as my kids do things they never had done before. So easy to document, celebrate, and remember. 5 years ago I first held my little baby boy, Wyatt. and I will never forget those first moments of sweetness.

Last fall I attended Women of Faith in Denver, and I heard Karen Kingsbury read her new book, Let Me Hold You Longer.


When she was done, there wasn't a dry eye in that room filled of thousands of women... as we all missed our kids and grieved our yesterdays. I think the only book that made me cry more was "I'll Love You Forever."

So today is a last... the last time I'll have a 4 year old. Tomorrow is a first: first day of my "baby's" fifth year... but I'm not crying, because I choose not to dwell on yesterday OR tomorrow. I'm here, now, in the best time of my life. Sure, there are things to look forward to: life at the end of the budget, the feeling of a clean kitchen after all the hard cleaning is done, a time when we will leave suffering behind and spend eternity in the GLORY of the Father... But when it comes to my kids, today is the best day. I'm in no hurry. THIS is my favorite stage, and it always will be. In five years, when they are *gasp* 16, 15, 11 and 10... I will still say the same. " THIS is the best it's ever been, and I love where we are right now."

I am so thankful for my kids, and for their sweet bed time prayers tonight. At no prompting of my own, they each thanked God for giving them 5 years of Wyatt's life. And Wyatt thanked God for all the great mail he's been getting. (thank you friends for flooding our mailbox and making his birthday wish come true!) Yes, this is a great day, and so will be tomorrow when we look through his baby book and remember his firsts, his lasts, and then we will celebrate the day. And he will get more mail and say something funny, I'm sure. And he will even love this 'Mater' cake the kids helped me make tonight.

4-H fun at the Fair

This year the county fair wrapped up our first year with our very own homeschool 4-H club. It was a year for learning the ropes and for having fun in the process. It was our second year showing rabbits and chickens, as well as the kids first year in photography. It was also Mayda's first year participating in Clover Kids! Emma received a purple ribbon for showmanship and Tyler took a silver medal. They both got purple ribbons for their photography and took blues for their animal breed classes.

With the help of 4-H curriculum ,we studied several fun subjects: fishing, trees, poultry, rabbitry, photography, and more. Other subjects in the works for our club include: woodworking, electricity, cooking, and heritage studies.

We also attended the county fair out east where Ben's folks live. The kids had a ball riding the rides and enjoying a typical midwestern county fair. It wouldn't be summer without it.

Getting Ready for Homeschool

One of my goals this week is to get our school assigment charts all made up and filled with assignments. The hardest part is deciding how long our school year should run and how many days off for Holidays and such. This year I had a hard time finding time to get into my favorite teacher store, so I wasn't able to find the charts I normally use. I thought it would save time not to make another trip to "town" to just use a ruler and make my own charts. WOW, that took a bit! But don't they look nice?

Click here to read about how we assign our school work. This year the kids decorated their own charts!

I also got my pushpin board back on the "school" wall (err.... dining room) and filled it with flashcards for our Awana memorization. I am going to add to our Bible curriculum this year, as I think we need a little more history/survey of the Bible.. but for memorization motivation, AWANA is tops. :)

How are you getting ready for school? May I humbly suggest you begin with this "must do before school" list?

2 Timothy 2:15 (NASB) Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

Social Networking and Family Ties

Ok, I'll admit, I'm going to brag a little here. My 85 year young grandma has a facebook. She has had one for about 6 years. She lives in a nursing home and deals with a Parkinson's like disease... and yet she has a computer in her room and recently "liked" the rock band her favorite nursing-home-staffer plays in on the side, and has now "friended" half of the band. That's one hip grandma. :)

I used to think facebook was a waste of time... that social networking was just that: social. Just a way for people to hob-nob and waste time chatting online. Don't get me wrong, it can be all that, but it can be more!

Via facebook I am able to share geneological information with long lost cousins and find pictures of my great-great grandparents I didn't even know existed. Try tagging everyone who is a decendent of this person in the black and white sod house photo. Cool. No log in for ancestry.com needed. On facebook our homeschool group can plan events and instantly know who is or isn't available and adjust accordningly BEFORE the newsletter hits the presses. Another great part, aside from events and photo sharing, is the customizable format. I only hear from or share with those I choose. My life is not open to the WHOLE WORLD as it would be on myspace or twitter.... or even this blog.

But here is where I think facebook and this digital age has changed our lives. I think the whole thing had slowly integrated into my life until I had a realization yesterday morning:

I was sitting in the hospital with my grandma, who was recovering from an illness, and we were typing an update for our private family group on fb, so they would know she would be discharged that afternoon. The lady who was sharing grandma's hospital room was equally as old and her smarthpone was going off every 30 seconds with well wishes from friends, and she was using voice texting to keep her son overseas updated on her care... and it hit me.

Grandma's tears of joy at reading all the love on her facebook wall didn't cost us a thing. No flowers needed to fill that tiny hospital room; we have LOVE, instantly communicated with words and pictures, concern and prayers being lifted at a moment's notice. We live in an age where it is impossible to not know, to not care.  Whether it's for a cancer battle or an uprising in Egypt. And we can be up todate with it all, in the time it takes to make one phone call. (unless you get sucked in to a game app, which would be your fault that you didn't block it... )

So many call this technology a loss of privacy, or a waste of time. I say only if you let it. But I could see a couple of old ladies perked up by knowing that so many loved and cared and shared... and I know it matters. Just as any tool that comes our way can eat your life if you let it, or it can free you up to be more effective: in how you plan, care, share, and enjoy life.

Now, my computer time is up, and I'm going outside... :) And later I'm going to visit my grandma, in person.

Garden Update, Early August 2012

I am still in the process of fixing my home computer, but in the mean time I have borrowed one from family. It is so wonderful to have a keyboard to type on instead of my smartphone! (which never makes me feel very smart)

What a different summer it has been from last year! The weather turned warm very early, and it has stayed that way all summer. Coupling that with very little rain, and the garden has been really struggling. My corn didn't come up at all, so my garden seems quite a bit smaller. I did not opt to take vegtables to the farmer's market this summer, so that was ok. We've been enjoying what we've been getting.

The cucumber/lettuce trellis experiment was a bust. The cukes didn't fare well and the guineas ate ALL of my lettuce. After that the dill and weeds took over and the grasshoppers finished it off. I am not complaining. The reason an experiment is called and experiment, is that it's trying something new that may or may not work. I've tilled the whole patch under and replanted fall lettuce and cabbage there, so hopefully it won't bea  wash. I do plan on putting up a screen to keep out the guineas, or give them away, whichever comes first.




potatoes

The potatoes did well at first but struggled during the July heat and lack of rain. I've doubled my efforts to keep them nice and wet and I think they will come in fine. We have red and russet potatoes planted.

The tomatoes are coming up as bushes! They love this hot weather, so I'm thankful for that. We have only picked one so far. I see a nice crop of romas setting on and am envisioning lots of yummy salsa.

Here are a few more pictures of the garden, and I hope to get more posts up soon:

beets

zucchini

zinnia's and marigolds

The grapes are setting on VERY well and we look to harvest nearly FOUR times as much this year. Read about the benefits of pruning in this older post.

grapes

cabbage

broccoli

More about last year's garden:
2011 Garden Overview
2011 Tomatoes
2011 Cucumbers
2011 Spring Garden: Lettuce, Spinach, Onions, and Peas
2011 Green Beans
Sunflowers
The 2011 Chickens

Falling In Love At The Laundromat

I just wanted to post to let everyone know my computer is still broken, but I am still here... Meaningful blog posting is challenging from a smartphone.

Today Wyatt and I were at the laundromat. Between the post-company bedding change, spring cleaning, and all the sorting I've been doing in the basement... Somehow I've gotten 20 + loads behind in my laundry. This is something that neither my schedule, my washing machine, nor my septic system can handle in any kind of short order.

So today I packed my clothes... and I fell in love with a super washer that can wash 6 loads in only 22 minutes. Sadly I filled three of those!

It really does feel like cheating.



I almost have hubby convinced to get one. ;)

In the mean time I have a bunch of great blog posts floating around in my head. The Bible in a year reading has been so awesome and timely lately! Hopefully this week I will stumble through installing my new hard drive successfully. Prayers appreciated!