August Daybook

(Sorry for my absense on this blog for a bit.  Here's my attempt at catching you up! Thanks for being patient!)

Am I the only one who is asking where this summer is going?!  August already? Really?!

Giving Thanks:

Honestly, I've been loving this summer.  The weather was cool in June, and got hot for the final days of July.  Just in time for my little girl to celebrate the two-week-mark post-surgery with a day at a waterpark. 

 I found this picture on my phone and it reminded me how far we've come!

my poor little baby recovering post-op with melted popcicles and water

And two weeks later here we are on our afternoon celebration at the pool!

Doesn't this just scream "summer fun"?!

Look carefully and you can see that the hat is reversible...couldn't decide which side looked better with her suit!

So, I made this hat.  I always pretend that someday I'll really be considered something of a sewist (no, that's a word. I know because I read about these things...because I want to be one...but am not really there yet.  At all. #keepdreaming).   Truth be told, the edges are really rough (I just hand-stitched the whole thing), but it looks cute from a distance! #keepsthesunoff

I sent my Mom on a Target run for this slushie maker on day 2 of "recovery".  I must have made a million slushies (because of course, Galadriel wasn't the only one who thought we had brought the State Fair into our own kitchen!)  No seriously--I made these for the neighborhood kids too!  

Grateful and excited:  Then...last Monday...the "men" showed up and gutted our screened porch.  Screened porches in theory are wonderful, but in reality, ours was just a catch-all for clutter and dirt as my kids trapesed in out of our backyard.  It always drove me nuts and we never made good use of it.

But it was a pretty large space.  And right off of our main living area.  So I always had to look into the mess through the glass sliding doors.

insulation...("what if that was cotton candy?!!" "Don't you DARE try it--it's poisonous!")

For seven years I have thought of enclosing it, and held off, wondering if we really needed or wanted the space.  With our children getting older, it just became more and more clear to me that this would be a huge blessing.

Then they framed it out and they say the walls are supposed to go up this week.

When it's finished, we should have a homeschool area that isn't my dining room! I can't tell you how excited I am at the prospect of not having to move bins of crayons and stacks of notebooks before I set the table for dinner!  This is huge.  (Huge.) #homeschoolmomlove

Learning lessons in over planning Grateful, again:  And because I'm SO very efficient a home manager, I was so lucky as to have both construction in the backyard, and a crew in the front yard digging up our old dying yew shrubs and putting in some new plantings and a crabapple tree (which I didn't get a picture of- yet- I'll get ya one!)

I love hydrangeas.

They added the stone, which is supposed to fade to a cream color.  It's a little white for me right now, but it does neaten things up!

Reina update:  Little pup got her first round of vaccines...here she is at the vet, looking out the window all unawares of the invasive temperature readings that were about to be taken.

 She's doubled her weight in the month we've had her, and she's getting much better about taking walks.  House breaking is super as long as we're paying attention.  If we are lazy, all bets are off.  So we aren't (lazy).  Or Mama isn't happy.

And THAT is pretty much what we've been up to!

Phew.  Summer: love it.

2015-2016 School Year Planning: Part 3 (final installment--promise!:))

Ready for my great exciting discovery?  Turns out, it was only new to me.  I'm pretty sure I'm the last one to the party, but I think this is what I was looking for all along and just didn't know it.

It began sometime last year when my husband read this book and suggested we might consider educating in this way.  He made mention of a commonplace book.  I, not knowing what he was talking about, probably didn't jump at the idea...I might have strongly leaned toward continuing with the set curriculum plans we had in place for that year...I may have been a bit smug, even.  But, as tends to happen, the suggestion stuck in my head, so when I heard Auntie Leila say that she used notecards for her commonplace book...well, you know me and Auntie Leila. (You don't? Pearls of wisdom, I tell you, pearls.)  I suppose my husband has a right to be miffed.  I mean, he did suggest this well before I read Auntie Leila's suggestion.  Luckily, he knows nothing of this little coincidence.  At least not until he reads my blog.  Anyway, I'm happy to admit that, as usual, he was right.  I'm thinking that maybe, if I am willing to expand my comfort zone of how I home educate....maybe this could be really good.

What is this "Thomas Jefferson education", and this commonplace book of which we speak? (If you go read that above link you'll get the idea real quick).  Well, I haven't read the book.  But I sort of gather that it's like this: Thomas Jefferson read things, studied things, recorded what he had learned in a "commonplace book", and then met with a "tutor" to discuss thoughts and have questions asked of him.  Simple, really.  Sort of what naturally happens with home education, between parents and their children.  Especially if you're reading and studying together!

So, theory is great, but I needed very concrete notions of how this might look in the day-to-day if I was to take it on with my family.  Please recall that I have eight children ages 13 and under!

Well, someone else had nine (children), so I'm going full-circle here back to Elizabeth's first artice where she goes from the theory ("could it be a storybook year") to the practical (what that looks like day-to-day).  She writes:

For my fifth-grader, I have a good math text, Rosetta Stone, some art history, nature notebooks, and, at his request,Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. All the rest? Picture books.

Not that Elizabeth was thinking so much "Thomas Jefferson", but she's totally got the rhythm right for a big family: break the studies down into few, basic subjects: math, history, science, literature. Then, sticking to solid, basic texts or workbooks (Saxon math, CHC or Seton workbooks for things like language arts or phonics), doing as much learning using living books as we can.  (I have heard that this way of schooling is called "ecclectic" (I googled it once and sure enough- it's real)).

Spending less time following a set curriculum, I hope to open up more time for my students to read, study, and research on their own and record in their commonplace books.  After a set period of time (whether this is daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the subject) we will gather the commonplace books and look them over, ask and answer questions,  discuss ideas and ask them to share their thoughts.

This will go for math as well as for history, science, and literature.  I will give them a set block of time for each subject--to read and study, and then to write in their commonplace books.  I am also going to leave the last time block of the day for them to choose an area of interest to study--be it beekeeping or basketweaving (in my children's case it will more likely be WWII planes or the geography of Asia or Africa).  I am planning on setting aside one day each week for a trip to the library to gather such research books (probably Monday, otherwise Friday).  We are lucky enough to live within walking/biking distance of the library, so my kids should be free to supplement throughout the week if need be.  However, I'd like them to plan their studies ahead of time, so that the bulk of thier days will be actually spent studying, and not necessarily biking hither and yon during the school day.;)

I'm going to post this now, imperfect as my thoughts are, because you've all been waiting long enough!  As I start to make concrete purchases of curriculum, I'll try to share a bit more.

Do go follow Auntie Leila's link that I shared above, though--she'll convince you if I don't!  Here's the link again:

http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2014/07/the-killer-angels-in-which-i-divulge-tips-for-homeschooling/

--ooh, and I heard from one reader that the Ambleside site left her overwhelmed.  Yes, it did me too the first few times through.  Well, Auntie Leila addresses that little problem in this post as well.  

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

{Pretty/Happy}

She started running just as I tried to get some pictures of her curls! 

{Funny/Real}

The dog bed, chew toys, and my husband's shoe: I am glad I discovered this before my husband did.

This little pup is lucky to still have a home.

Recoup and Recover

(I'm not posting about our school plans just yet.  I've got a huge post almost ready, but I need a little more time before I share it here.)

It's almost a week since Galadriel's tonsilectomy, adenoidectomy, and ear tubes were put in.   A sincere thankyou to anyone who said a prayer!  Honestly, I was FAR more nervous than Galadriel ever was!

Galadriel will turn 9 at the end of next month, so she's still 8.  She sucked my thumb (yes, I wrote that correctly--those who know me will make me blush as they recall this oddity from her youth) until she was three.  She had an allergic reaction right before Bilbo was born that left her in hives from head to toe.  Miraculously, she has never had a reaction since (we did avoid pineapple for a few years)!  By the time Bilbo was three months old, they weighed the same weight: 20 pounds.  (Galadriel is only 21 months older than Bilbo).  She was a petite little flyweight.  I cannot tell you how I fretted over her health!

But she never was unhealthy.  And she grew strong (and sassy)!  She became my little gymnast.  She learned to be a little less sassy and a little more sweet.  A lot more sweet, actually...not that she doesn't have her moments.;)

One year ago she started snoring very loudly and we wondered about her adenoids.  We met with the ear, nose, throat doctor who asked about other symptoms and told us to observe for things like sleep apnea (which we never detected).  Then last winter poor Galadriel got a double ear infection, double perforated eardrums.

When we took her in for her one year follow up, the decision was clear and unanimous: it all had to go!  Plus ear tubes.  Her hearing was compromised due to fluid that couldn't drain.

I think she was so excited to hear, and so tempted by the promise of unlimited popsicles, that she wasn't afraid.  It was hard for me to wait during the surgery.  To wait for the doctor to come and tell me it was over and that it had all gone smoothly.  I think it took 30 minutes--it was fast. 

 It has been a long, hard week of up and down recovery.  Some days have been nothing but movies and popsicles.  An afternoon outside playing gently with friends might leave her worn out and hurting.  But day by day she is healing.  I can't tell you how happy I am when she is feeling better and starts smiling and making her silly jokes again.

 On Monday Arwen left for camp for a week!  My guess (and hope!) is that she's having a wonderful time.

I, however, am ready to go pick her up (she'd kill me:))!  I'm hopelessly attached to my children.

All in all, it's been quite the week.  I'll be very happy to finish out this summer with Arwen back home and Galadriel back to playing.  So, those thoughts about the upcoming school year...are just not that inspiring to me right now.   Soon, though. Soon.:)

School Plans 2015-2016

[I have decided to break this post into more than one post...because it sort of became...too long].

Part 1: the dilemma

Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” 

                                                                            ― L.M. Montgomery

(I am applying this quote to the new school year.)

I mentioned before that I've been working on my homeschooling plans for the next school year.  For me, "working on plans" is much less sitting down with an excel spreadsheet and much more waiting; thinking, praying, and just waiting for something to strike me (like inspiration from the Holy Spirit).



July is slipping through my fingers and the sales offered by the homeschooling curriculum sites are coming and going fast enough to make my head spin.  All kinds of thoughts have been percolating in my brain and it is time for me to get concrete.

Last night I started digging.

I turned to things that I remembered having read once.  I turned to old friends, old sources of wisdom and inspiration to try to get my juices flowing.  I came upon this over at In the Heart of my Home
which begins with this:

Late last summer, as I was gathering my thoughts on curriculum and trying to plan the year, I hit a wall. Actually, I was probably already flat up against the wall, but the time of year compelled me to do what I'd always done, so I pressed on. But I didn't want to plan. And I wasn't enthused about all the things that had previously sparked so much creative energy. 

I read on.  (from "Could it be a storybook year?")

For over twenty years, I have been inspired by the art and the literature of picture books. I've thrown my whole heart into creating with books, whether it was bulletin boards in a classroom or fullblown unit studies for many ages. Literature-based learning was where I invested most of my creative energy. Some people love their cameras, some their paints, others their yarn or fabric. For me, it was always those beautiful books and the endless possiblities of things we could do with them.

That got me thinking about storybooks and then about literature in general.  If we needed beautiful books, I needed to track down good recommendations.  I started with Elizabeth Foss' Serendipity lists here and then looked at Ambleside's lists here.

Here's a peek at Ambleside's list for K-1 (just to get your creative juices flowing).  If you look for these on Amazon, you can probably find 10 of them for sale for $0.01 each.  I'm not sure what condition these will arrive in, but I'll let you know.  I ordered a bunch.

Marcia Brown Ruth Brown Jeff Brumbeau Eve Bunting Eric Carle Kay Chorao Joyce Dunbar Marie Hall Ets Candace Fleming Denise Fleming Mem Fox Don Freeman Nancy Price Graff John Graham Hardie Gramatky Donald Hall M.C. Hellendorfer James Herriot Angela Hunt Karla Kuskin Munroe Leaf Jonathan London Page McBrier Edna Miller A. A. Milne Martha Sanders Brinton Turkel Susan Wojciechowski

Stone Soup The Picnic The Quilt Maker’s Gift Flower Garden House for Hermit Crab Cathedral Mouse Ten Little Mice In the Forest Gabriella’s Song In the Small, Small Pond In the Tall, Tall Grass Time for Bed A Rainbow of My Own In the Hush of the Evening I Love You, Mouse Little Toot Oxcart Man Gather Up, Gather In James Herriot’s Treasury for Children The Tale of the Three Trees James and the Rain The Story of Ferdinand Red Wolf Country Beatrice’s Goat Jumping Bean Mousekin’s Christmas Eve Mousekin’s Frosty Friend Mousekin’s Golden House Mousekin’s Thanksgiving Mousekin’s Woodland Sleepers Patches Finds a New Home Now We Are Six The House at Pooh Corner* When We Were Very Young Winnie-the-Pooh* Alexander and the Magic Mouse Thy Friend, Obadiah The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

My brain being the unsystematic boom-and-bust type of brain it is, immediately began expanding this notion upward to my older grade-school aged children who would need more than picture books (even if I know they'll read (or re-read) those too!)

I revisited this list for children's books and then this post for the older children over at the beautiful blog Wildflowers and Marbles.  I might have made a few more purchases.

[A funny aside: the other night I mentioned to my husband that I had begun planning for the new school year and buying a few things on Amazon.  "Yes," he said, "I noticed the cart on Amazon had fifty things in it!"  heh heh...just browsing...]

I'm going to break here to give you a chance to follow some of those links and get your ideas going too.  In my next post I'll add the second set of thoughts that went into my schoolyear planning.

***I'm adding something because I forgot: Run over to Amongst Lovely Things and read a whole bunch on forming your children's moral imagination! (lots of book recommendations there!)

It's Wednesday...

I know I've been bugging you all about this, but I just think it's such an awesome opportunity to get some Bible in our homes!  It's so important for our children, and so very helpful to me as a mother to have this FREE beauty (art) and wisdom (Word of God) available each week this summer.

Did I mention that I'm going to be so sad when it's over?  I don't want to miss a single print.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

thank you, Galadriel and Arwen--wildflowers--wait...what's that...

almonds?

Thank you, Eowyn...very interesting aesthetic touch...#don'tleaveyour1-year-oldaloneinthekitchen