Preparing for Snow-maggedon

So... it's supposed to snow...

We're in the 13-18" area.

My facebook friends headed to the store to stock up on things yesterday and today. I resisted the urge to do the same. Instead of heading to Walmart, I thought I'd prepare by finding some links to fun snow-day activities. If anyone else has fun snow-related activities to do, I'd love to know about them! Here are just a few to get started...

Snacks and Treats

We will likely make Snowman Soup. We have one good story to accompany our Snowman Soup, but I think we need another, so we'll likely write a story and illustrate it as part of our preparation.

I've been waiting to make these frozen banana snowmen with the kids.

We may also make some sort of snowball cake sort of like these. I love the yellow cake recipe here. It's so easy and I always get delicious results. We'll top with coconut, which my children love and we hardly ever have. A snowman cake is here.

Here's a Snow White Pizza that looks different and deliciously fun! Or one could make it with alfredo, carrots, and mushrooms and make a Snowman Pizza.

Crafts and Games

There's always snowflake-making. We're going to do ours out of leftover white tissue paper from Christmas and we may cut them into hearts to work as a Valentine decoration.

These snowman pins are cute and would work as magnets, which we happen to have on hand.

Tic-Tac-Snow is fun. The gluing of the cottonballs to the penny is quite the event. I don't usually let my children glue things. :)

School

I think I'm going to have Annalivia and Daniel do the snowman name graph and scarf pattern found at this link.

And Almost Unschoolers has many cool projects involving snow. We'll be doing this experiment, but I'd suggest searching her blog for "snow" to see her brilliant ideas!

And, if this snow drags on and on, we are going to scrap the winter-related themes and get out the gardening book and seed catalogs! Happy Snow Day(s)!!

Just So Stories

Recently, we got a Kindle onto which I eventually plan to load a bunch of homeschool books. To fill the gap between receiving the thing and that time at which I unpack the curriculum discs or, more accurately, the time at which I find the instructions for loading said curriculum onto a reader, I downloaded a free copy of Kipling's Just So Stories. I've been reading them to the kids and have been having so much fun!

I haven't read these stories since late junior high and I never appreciated the wit and humor in them back then. The language and vocab is so rich and the characters so lighthearted... They are just a pleasure to dramatize vocally, and the kids sit in rapt attention (mostly) even though the meaning of a good third of it must go right over their heads. It really does make me eager to find more classics to share with them!

School -- a mid-term evaluation

It is now the third week of October, and we have been "doing school" for about 8 weeks now, more or sometimes less, successfully. In public school, we always had a 9-week evaluation as students. I thought that was a wise idea and that I should do an evaluation of what is and is not working for us in this first year of homeschool.

Assessment

:: Learning (and teaching) style -- I think so far that I've discovered that both Annalivia and I are interest-led schoolers, at heart. She does really well with learning that she initiates. She does ok with things I ask her to do; she's not resentful or difficult, it's just that she really sparkles with things that she wants to do. And, thankfully, she has wanted to do something with pretty much every subject. It's just a matter of figuring out what really excites her about each.

:: Sonlight Curriculum -- While I love the idea of Sonlight, I've found that, in practice, it's just not a great fit for me. I really like the literature-centric approach in that most of our learning can take place doing something (reading together) that we all like to do normally, but I think I might be more of unit-study homeschooling parent. So far, I like Sonlight's selections, but, for my interests, I want more integrated history, science, art, etc. I am thankful for the teacher's guide that details a schedule, but again, it doesn't really work for us. Most of the time I spend with it is working on adapting it. I think we'll use something else next year.

:: Reading -- Annalivia is doing very well at basic blending. The readers that came with our Sonlight program are very good -- simple and easy with illustrations reminiscent of the Frog and Toad series. And these little books also have a story line, which is really something when they only use words ending in -at and -ad! She likes to read them and does best when I let her initiate the reading and just sit by her to help, if necessary.

:: Spelling -- I bought the Spell to Write and Read program and really like the concept of it, but in execution, it does not fit us very well. Yet. I have thought about it, prayed about it, turned it over in my head a thousand times, and have come to the conclusion that I need to let Annalivia learn to read the way that she is already learning and use the SWR program in a grade or two. I think this may mean that she'll have to re-learn some things, but holding her back from reading to try to get her to work on this program is just creating frustration in both of us.

:: Math -- We started Math-U-See Alpha and I decided we needed to go back and do Primer. I haven't even gotten it out, though, since we are moving soon and I'd really like formal math to be something we do every day. Instead, we are working on writing numbers on the white board, which is just about the most thrilling thing that Annalivia and Daniel get to do, in their opinions, and identifying the plus and equal signs and talking about what they mean. And I'm trying to work informal math lessons into life more frequently.

:: Handwriting -- This and Reading are the two areas at which Annalivia really excels. She LOVES learning cursive handwriting and I love the program (New American Cursive) and the accompanying computer program (Start Write) that allows me to customize pages for her to practice writing. She's learning to write her name in cursive and is doing really well, though having a bit of trouble with the double n's. Dennis was telling me that the n's were always hard for him, too. :) Annalivia loves to practice "pretty" writing. I think it appeals to her artistic side.

:: Bible -- The Bible curriculum that came with our Sonlight core is the Egermeier's Children's Bible. Annalivia and Daniel really like stories from it, and I like reading the stories to them. The stories are relatively short, descriptive, and the interpretive details are good, or at worst, benign. The cd of memory verses, is, frankly, lacking, and a little boring. And, other than making a timeline, there's nothing else included in the program. Personally, I'd like a little more.

We have supplemented the Egermeier Bible with watching the new What's in the Bible dvd's from Phil Vischer. We love, love, LOVE them! They are funny and engaging and very informative. Annalivia and Daniel can tell you that the Septuagint sounds like a sneeze, but is also "a copy of a copy" of the Bible, and they know the definitions of "salvation" (to be saved or rescued from danger) and "redeemed" (to have your debt paid by someone) and they can apply those things to Jesus. And they know the patriarchs, and are learning the judges, and are fascinated by pirates in hot-air balloons who have to use the bathroom. I think this series is worth every penny we will spend on it.

:: Science, Art, Music, and the rest -- This stuff is easy for me to come up with and work on with the kids. Annalivia and Daniel love to draw and paint and things like nature study, art journaling, drawing still-lifes, dancing to music, singing hymns... that's all just part of things here.

Things to think about on the way forward

:: The reason for it all -- Sometimes I need to remind myself that the reasons we homeschool are to experience learning about the life with which God has blessed us, in the family with which God has blessed us, using the gifts which which God has blessed us. We don't homeschool to meet state acheivement test requirements or justify how we spend our days or compete with peers (mine or the kids'). I can get out of focus so easily. I need to tattoo these things backwards on my forehead so I read them in the mirror each morning, you know? :) There's a lot of grace in this...

:: Impending events -- the upcoming arrival of Peter, the complications I've experienced from my previous c-section (serious muscle separation resulting in three hernia necessitating "limited activity" from me) and the moving into of the house (we get to start moving next week, hurrah!!), not to mention the holidays, are going to change how we do things even more. I think we're going to cut to bare-bones (Bible, reading practice, handwriting on-demand only) until after Peter is born. Or, on the other hand, we may do a couple of unit studies on Thanksgiving and Advent. I could get excited about those.

:: Incorporation of Daniel (and Emmeliese) -- So far, Daniel has been in peripheral attendance, but he is getting interested in "doing school" too and I need to start working with him more intentionally. Emmeliese LOVES to draw when the other kids are drawing, and needs to be incorporated...somehow. Otherwise, she's just a screechy pest. :)

:: Curriculum -- I'm going to be deconstructing the Sonlight core and trying to figure out how to put together something a little more interesting to all of us. And I need to plan to attend some sort of curriculum preview/ homeschooling fair this year. Extensive internet research is helpful. To a point. Then, I just need to spend some time with some materials and find out what works. And doesn't.

School and play

What a day this was!

School went fairly well today. I've realized, though, that Annalivia needs to go back and do the Primer in Math-U-See instead of starting with Alpha. I had read that the Alpha program covered everything in Primer and that it was very repetitive. But she is genuinely frustrated and I think she inherited my propensity to be truly anxious about math if she doesn't understand. (Aside -- if Math-U-See was not such a cool program, I would ditch it based on the pain-in-the-rear website and terrible phone customer service. Talk about frustrating!)

As I took the kids to Mom's for lunch, I "happened" to turn on the radio and heard a Family Talk program about homeschooling with a mother and father with 7 kids who are veteran homeschoolers. It was such a reassuring message and reminded me to focus every day on why we've decided to start doing this in the first place. One of the main reasons was to be able to teach our kids at their pace and instill in them a real love of learning from their first educational experiences. I think we'll change some things around to do that. Probably I'll understand more about what changes to make after four months, as opposed to four days. :)

Also around lunch, our kitchen cabinets were delivered to the new house. They are so amazing! We had a friend from church who was laid off from the custom cabinet shop where he worked for 13 years and then decided to form a business with a friend, do the work for us. They are so amazing. The kitchen and bathroom both have a 10-foot floor-to-ceiling cabinet in them that house the laundry chute and the space for the future dumbwaiter. It is so cool -- exactly what we imagined! Awesome!

For dinner, Dennis and I got to go on a date without the kids thanks to my mother's generous offer to hang out with all three of them for a couple of hours. It was so nice to just be together without having to cut up anyone's food or make sure the drinks were out of the way of Emmeliese's grabby hands.

When we came home, we drove through a major rainstorm and then picked up the kids and went to the new house. The rain slowed when we pulled in the drive and Daniel, who has been wearing constantly his "fire boots" (rain boots that look like firemen's boots) began jumping in puddles in the yard. Pretty soon Emmeliese joined in. Annalivia finally got into things and all three got very wet and muddy. I asked if they wanted to walk back to the house we rent and they said yes, so the four of us walked home while Daddy drove the van. We went through another dozen puddles. Daniel's boots were full of water, Emmeliese sat down in a puddle and Annalivia did so much jumping that her skirt and legs were splattered with mud all the way to her belly. It was so fun to see them having so much fun! When we got about halfway down our block, here came Dennis with his rubber boots on over his jeans. I was more impressed than the kids, I think, but it was sweet to see Daddy join in.

And, finally, tonight after the kids were to bed, I made up some baking mix and I'm going to turn on the oven tomorrow!! The storm was the leading edge of a big front that is bringing wind and cooler temps overnight. The high for tomorrow is supposed to be 74! Oh, so glad for fall!! I think we'll celebrate by taking a field trip to an apple orchard. Since we're homeschoolers now, we can beat the weekend crowds. At least, that's how I hope it will work!

Hump day

Tonight the kids started our church's mid-week program. Daniel desperately wanted to attend, though the program is supposed to start with 4-year olds. Dennis volunteers and so, technically, Daniel could get special dispensation to attend. Dennis and Annalivia left early and talked to the pastor who agreed Daniel could try it so Dennis called me and I took Daniel over to the church.

Before we left, I gave Daniel a little lecture about listening to his teacher and obeying. He was ok with that. I also told him he couldn't fuss and he couldn't cry for Daddy. His lip trembled a little and he said, "Can I just give Daddy a hug?" I told him I was sure it was fine. I'm anxious to hear how it went when they all get home in an hour or so.

We've been working a lot with Daniel about fussing. He throws himself on the ground way too often, kicking his little legs and hyperventalating. I haven't figured out the solution. Time-outs are ok, but not effective enough (i.e. there's too much time to fuss until he turns it off). Daniel doesn't respond very well to swats, either. I don't know. Dennis and I are sort of just praying through it, trying new things, and asking for wisdom from God in how to treat Daniel with both truth AND grace. It's a little hard.

As for school, after yesterday's success, I was sort of thinking today would be smooth. But it was a more challenging day in the McStew house. We all slept late, it was grey and raining, and it was hot and humid. Not a great combination. Annalivia got downstairs before I did and turned on a movie, which I had to turn off to eat breakfast and start school. But we soldiered through, managed the punky attitudes during math, and set some ground rules on tv usage. And it was ok -- not ideal, but ok. That, in and of itself, was sort of comforting.

And now, Emmeliese and I are home alone, getting ready to give her a bath and then put her to bed, clean up the house and get towards bed myself. It really has been a good day, in retrospect. I'm thankful for it.

There was Bach... and it was better

The second day of school went MUCH better than the first. The kids knew what to expect, the waffles were not black, the three-year old kept it together -for the most part, and all went smoothly.

We still finished quickly -- about an hour or so. We're starting with Bible and memory verses during breakfast, then on to handwriting for Annalivia and letter-learning for Daniel. Then math and reading practice for Annalivia followed by read-alouds for everyone. Right now math is simplified -- just practicing writing numbers; tomorrow I'll add the full program, which I hope will be a little interesting to Daniel, too, so I expect it will get a little longer. Once I become more familiar with our spelling program, I'll add it to the mix, too. And our read-alouds may get longer, too, though right now we are reading ahead due to popular demand, so it may not add much time. Art is in the afternoon. I'm hoping to add piano after Christmas.

I was kind of concerned by how quickly everything goes, but if Annalivia was going to kindergarten, she'd be there for about 3 hours and couldn't possibly be doing academics all of that time. Things will get a little more intense, I guess, but for now the schedule is nice and easy. If we start by 8ish, we are finishing up by 9:30 or so which means my niece, who comes to visit in the mornings, gets in on some read-alouds and then we are done.

I like it.

The first day of school

My facebook post of 11 a.m.

The first day of school involved a 2 am wakeup by the 1 yr old, a 25 minute cry by the 3 yr old upon waking, burned waffles and an early recess called by Mommy @ 9:15. Other than that, it was great! :)

Yeah. I had a sneaking suspicion that today was going to be a little tough. I'm blog-friends with enough homeschoolers to know that, behind the cute pictures of children studiously parsing Latin verbs or reciting the third chapter of Leviticus while holding hands, things can be a little rocky on the first day of the new routine.

Still. I will admit -- I might have let myself dream of clean children with smiling faces, gathered around the table, eagerly looking to the mater familias to spark their little imaginations and fuel their fledgling educational desires. And in this vision, there may have been some Bach cello partitas floating in the background. Maybe.

But, ummm, yeah... not so much. I tried to be in bed by 9:30. Got there about 10 and Dennis and I finally stopped talking about 10:45. Then my head started to hurt. Sinuses? I don't know. As I wrote on fb... Emmeliese was up in the middle of the night which is very rare (thank you, Jesus, for that). She was awake and fussy for about an hour and Dennis and I were groggy enough to not choose the simple thing and just change her diaper, feed her and put her back down and hence stretched the treatment out far too long. I set an alarm to get up before the kids, who usually sleep until about 7:30. But Annalivia was awake before 7 wanting her school dress to be buttoned up by her sleeping mother. Emmeliese woke up 10 minutes after that. As we all headed downstairs, Daniel started crying and maintained his wail for about 25 minutes. And he continued to lament off and on for the half-hour after that as he laid on the bathroom floor.

In what I regarded as a sign from God, Eggo waffles are on sale this week at our grocery store, so I got some chocolate chip waffles, which we never have, as a special treat. I burned the first few. And, turns out, the kids don't like treats like that. After finally getting edible chocolate chip waffles on the plates of three hungry kids, I heard, "Mommy, can I please have just regular waffles?"

Annalivia and I did Bible study and began learning our memory verse for the week while Daniel was on the bathroom floor. This greatly upset him when he came to the table. Annalivia had, meanwhile, moved on to handwriting. Then Daniel got upset that he didn't have handwriting practice to do. Finally, I got him dressed and sat on the couch and kissed him until he stopped fussing andn then we did our read-alouds for the day with all three kids leaning up against me. That actually worked well.

After that as we only had one more thing to do and I was loaded with realizations of what worked and what OBVIOUSLY did not and what I can do differently, so I called a recess, turned on Kipper and laid down on the couch. And moaned a little.

Oddly, I would say it really WAS a successful morning. We got everything done we needed to do and Annalivia was excited by everything and the execution of everything worked pretty much like I thought it would... with burned breakfast and crying preschoolers thrown in.

But, tomorrow WILL be better...

Boys and girls

The DHM has a fascinating round-up/ summary of some links exploring learning differences between genders over at The Common Room.

When Daniel was born, I felt sort of as though I didn't really know him at all. I think much of that was because he is a boy. As the eldest of four sisters, with no male cousins around while growing up, getting acquainted with a boy-brain has been fascinating.

I have been amazed, intrigued and enthralled lately with watching Daniel (3) process life, especially in comparison with his older sister (5). It is incredibly interesting to study how he learns/ acts/ feels, etc. As we begin to teach them, it has been clear to us that the differences are deeper than simple personality traits. Reading this article was fun -- there's something going on in that little blond-haired blue-eyed boy that is completely, totally unique! :)

The morning report

It is 8 in the morning on this Thursday of the first week of Annalivia being out of Preschool. Mom has also been sick all week, so we've all been together all day, everyday. I realized this week how spoiled I've been; the older two kids have been at my mom's house basically four hours of four days of a week since Emmeliese was born. It's been a real gift. Since we decided to take Annalivia out of preschool, the plan is to have the kids go to my mom's one night a week (to play with cousins) and on Friday morning (to give me a break).

I wish I could say that everything just clicked right into place this week with all of us home, but...it hasn't. However, the difficulties strengthen my conviction even more that this all-four-of-us-together-all-the-time should be the default in our home. Now that we are in day 4, it feels better. We are kind of relaxing into the routine of being together, working around and with each other, playing together and by oneself and referee-ing a different energy level than usual. I had thought we'd just jump right in to preschool-at-home this week. Now I realize that we need a bit of time to adjust to each other and the new routine. But I like how being home feels today.

So, right now, Emmeliese is sitting in the middle of the floor, lunging forward to get things in the middle of the floor. Daniel has been running around in a helmet and shield with sword in hand fighting dragons. Annalivia cranked up the cd player so we're listening to English church music while she alternately draws pictures of princesses and tries to get "The Prince" to dance with her. He's not been very cooperative, so she's mainly drawing.

I'm drinking coffee -- a habit I reintroduced with the time change. I found a pound of whole bean coffee a friend had given me over two years ago. It's ... not terrible, surprisingly. Not the best ever, but free. And hot. We have yet to turn on our furnace and the space heaters are nearing the end of the effectiveness, I think.

We have lots on the docket to do today. Daddy took the van to get a bit of a tune-up, so we're forced to be either home or walking to a destination, both of which are good for us. The house is a complete mess and I'm going to a conference with new-church ladies tomorrow so Grandma is coming to visit. She is terribly disturbed by blankets being the wrong direction on a bed so to say, "There's a little work to do" would be vastly understating things.

I best get at it.

A glimpse of things to come

So I've hesitated to say it here, "out loud" as it were, but Dennis and I are pretty sure that we are going to be homeschooling our kids. We've not started anything formal, but Annalivia has a little math workbook that she likes to do. It has counting and numbers and she gets to draw things. She always wants to "do math homework" so I let her.

Today, I was sitting at the table helping her and trying to pay bills online with Emmeliese on my lap while Daniel was sitting on the potty hollering about his progress there. Emmeliese was grabbing the computer and fussing, Annalivia was asking questions and Daniel was yelling to be wiped as the microwave alarm reminded me that lunch needed to be removed.

I wish I could link to my blog-friend Tonya's private blog where she took time to write out a journal of her day as a homeschooling mother of six. It was hilarious and totally delightful. I'm actually looking forward to this sort of chaos. :)

A successful first day

Annalivia enjoyed her morning at Preschool. I was excited to find out that she will be taught by one of my favorite people, a wonderful, patient and kind woman who is a member of our church and, actually, the wife of a minister. I am very glad that Annalivia is in her class and Annalivia was full of all sorts of exciting news when she emerged from school. "We saw three x's!" "We read about Douglas with the monster inside him!" "I drew this picture of you!"

To me, the best part of the day was the walk to and from school. We were running late, as usual, and left the house at 8:53. We walked into her classroom at 8:55 and that included a little tumble by Daniel. The walk home took a bit longer but only because we encountered Annalivia's cousins and my sister walking home from kindergarten.

Have I mentioned yet how GLAD I am that we moved back home?! I love it here.