Four days down, 176 to go!

Believe it or not - we just finished the 1st week of our 7th year of homeschooling. It's kind of hard to wrap my brain around it! Even though we're moving into the "veteran" stage of homeschooling now, I continue to learn new things about this lifestyle, teaching and my children.

So this week I learned....

1. No matter how prepared I think I am, I'm always woefully unprepared.
2. Sometimes the best lessons involve a 15 minute walk in the yard.
3. If I want the kids to learn something, all I need to do is put it under a vinyl tablecloth and they'll learn it. Even my 3yo is learning where the states are because her big sisters play "USA Bingo" (a game they invented) every time they're at the table. It's funny to hear Sadey talk about Montana, Mississippi and West Virginia one minute and then try to convince me that "A" really does say "meow" a few minutes later.
4. Crafts take much longer than I think they should.
5. Three year olds are easily amused with safety scissors, a glue stick and scrap paper.
6. Glue sticks don't make good lip gloss.
7. Nine and a half year olds can be awfully nostalgic when it comes to the 3 weeks they spent in a "real" preschool 7 years ago.
8. Middle sisters like to go first. It doesn't even matter what we're doing - reading time, crafts, a visit with the dr...they just want to be FIRST.
9. Patience is not something I was blessed with.
10. Thank the Lord that I was blessed with an exceedingly patient husband.

We'll be taking Fridays off until we start co op on September 5th, so this ends our first week of school. Next week we'll crack open the My Father's World books and I'll probably lose my mind trying to do 3 different programs each day. Too bad the house isn't self-cleaning. That would be nice....

Outdoor Hour Challenge #1

I should begin by saying that I know how blessed we are to be living where we are. It was only by God's hands that my family has been able to experience country life while living so close to the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not even sure how it all happened, but here we are in the midst of some of God's greatest creations.

Having said that though, we are also "blessed" with more than our fair share of mosquitoes, spiders, snakes, lizards, bears, sand gnats and creepy crawlies that make my skin crawl. I am trying to be a good homeschool mom and embrace nature in all it's glory, but it'd be easier if I wasn't (a) seriously creeped out by some of it and (b) constantly swatting at the mosquitoes regardless of how much bug spray I've bathed in. Brian is much more willing to get out there and see what he can find and he's done a good job of taking pictures so the girls and I can identify some of the strange or down right disgusting things we've seen since we moved into the woods about 16 months ago. Honestly though, I'd be fine if I never went into the yard. The butterflies and dragonflies are very pretty through the glass and I don't even need to don the mosquito netting to see them.

However, now that we've switched curriculum and have fully embraced the Charlotte Mason style of teaching, I thought I should probably also embrace the nature study aspect of her method. Today was one of those rare days that was just rainy enough to keep away the mosquitoes, but not too rainy to get outside so I thought it was a good time to start our first Outdoor Hour Challenge.

So we stepped into the backyard to see what we could find....



This bush is right by our back door and our homeowner says it's called a Chaste Bush. I don't know if that's true or not, but he told me all about how he planted it in honor of his three daughters :) It is in full bloom in early spring and is covered with bees for most of the summer. You can't see the bees, but you can hear them and it's a little scary to walk by the bush everyday to get into the yard. We had to cut nearly half of it down last year when a nearby tree fell onto it - but it grew back fast! It just started blooming again a couple of weeks ago, but it'll be all green for most of the fall and winter.


Delaney is in love with all the frogs in our yard. It's a bit like a bad black and white horror movie out there with all the tiny frogs hopping about. All three of the girls think they are great though and it's funny to watch the dog try to catch them. Even Sadey likes to chase them around the yard. Someday I hope to gather some tadpoles from the pond so we can watch them develop.


This is the pond on our property where all the frogs live. Unfortunately it's pretty overgrown and there are too many snakes for me to feel like it's safe to go exploring around the pond. It's prettier when the lilly pads are in bloom, but it's kinda' cool to have our own pond. We'll have to keep our eye on it to see how it changes with the seasons.

Sydney and I both thought this was a neat little weed. We have no idea what it is, but the little flower thingies (I'm such a true nature lover that the vocabulary obviously comes easy for me) are prickly. They aren't as stiff as burrs, but maybe they will become burrs in the fall or maybe that's just God's built in defense mechanism for the flowers...I have no idea.

These (below) are the goodies we brought in from the yard. Sydney was really interested in the heart shaped leaf (top left). Our house was vacant for several years before we moved in, so everything is overgrown and several bushes and vines are wrapped around trees and it's hard for us to tell what comes from what. The heart leaf came from a "tree" with about 4 other kinds of leaves and some dew berries (which I think might be a southern term for mulberries but the homeowner calls them dew berries so I just don't know yet) growing around the bottom of the tree.

Here (above) are the girls' journal pages: Delaney (6) Sydney (9) and Sadey (3)

The girls decided that they loved doing the nature study because it was fun to spend time together and to learn new things. They picked out a couple of leaves they want to try identifying and D wants to learn more about those darn - er I mean LOVELY - frogs.

So our first real nature walk turned out to be a pretty good experience and we're looking forward to figuring out what our leaves are and getting back into the yard again soon. Did I say that?

Wordless Wednesday

I've seen lots of Wordless Wednesday posts but can't find a link to the original. That's not stopping me from jumping on the bandwagon though.

Math review

Sydney is not that thrilled with math. It's hard for me to comprehend her disdain for the subject because it was always my favorite part of school. Yes, the rumors are true. I did and still do math problems for fun. I never did catch on to calculus, but the rest of it was fabulously interesting and I probably would have become a math teacher if I could have gotten beyond calc 101. But I digress....

So Sydney is not nearly as thrilled with math as I am and it's been a chore for me to figure out ways to make it meaningful and fun for her. We "let" her keep score in card games, she's always the banker when we play Monopoly or Life, she adds up everyone's cards when we play Uno and her sisters' dice when we play Chutes and Ladders. That game moves much quicker with dice, by the way. Remember that when boredom sets in. Anyway, that's all been great and wonderful, but she still gets cranky when we pull out the math book. Being the first week of school after a lengthy vacation, we need to do some review. Today I got even more creative than usual (or stole someone else's idea - it's hard to say which way it happened) and decided she should roll some dice and add or subtract whatever she rolls.

As you can see by the pictures, she was much more excited about rolling the dice than doing the math...but she got the job done and I think she might have had some fun along the way.

Bathroom update

Because I know you were just dying to see how the bathroom project turned out....

Before

After

First day of school

Today was the official start of our 2008 - 2009 school year and we began the day with photos, of course!

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to start the year with a study of the Olympics. Today. we talked about the history of the Olympics and some of the symbols and traditions of the games. We learned that the Olympic motto is "Citius - Altius - Fortius" which means "Faster, higher, stronger" and is intended to focus on trying your best - not just winning first place. So we talked about how there are only a little over 300 gold medals to be won and that most of the athletes will come home losers, but that's OK because they will try their best and many will do better than they have ever done before. "Winning isn't everything" seems like a good way to start the school year.

Aside from our Olympic study, Sadey became an official preschooler today and is learning all about the letter A. Delaney and I read some books together and spent a great deal of time looking over the books she'll be using this year. She is most excited about the science books and can't wait to start her nature journal. Sydney did a little bit of math and language arts review and was happy when I told her we'd put her first spelling pre-test off until tomorrow.

All in all, it was a very good day.

2008 Beijing Olympics

I decided to delay the start of our regular curriculum to capitalize on the girls' current interest - the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I found an awesome (and free) Olympics lapbook at Homeschool Share that will cover most of the subjects. We'll also be using the official site of the 2008 Olympics and Enchanted Learning (we have a free membership from our homeschool group because I teach a co op class).

Here's what we'll be doing:

Bible ~ 1Cor 9:24 "Do you know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."

Geography/History

• mapping the route of the torch relay
• learning some Chinese history
• learning about the flags of China and the US
• studying the history of the Olympics
• discovering the meaning of some of the Olympic symbols

Math ~ The girls each picked a team and we'll be tracking their medal count each day. We'll make a bar graph and use subtraction to see how many medals have been won since we last checked the count

Language Arts ~ They'll learn lots of new vocabulary as we talk about the sports, the Olympics and the countries. They will also get lots of handwriting practice :)

Science ~ We'll be talking about the food pyramid, the differences between an athlete's diet and our diets, and the importance of a healthy diet in everyday life

Fun ~ We'll have our own family olympics. The girls will choose the activities, determine the rules and run the event

Now don't get the idea that I'm a genius for coming up with this. Most of what we'll be doing comes straight from the lapbook at Homeschool Share. The only thing I did was search for the official Olympics site and find maps and flags. The internet is such a great tool for homeschoolers.

Another day, another chart

This is the girls' weekly chore chart. This week Sydney (9.5 yrs) is responsible for filling and emptying the dishwasher, starting a load of laundry and putting the clean clothes into the dryer and straightening the bookshelves. Delaney (6) is in charge of table clean up (which includes the floor), taking the clothes out of the dryer, and feeding the dog. Sadey (3.5) helps me empty the waste paper baskets. The photos are attached with velcro so we can rearrange on a weekly basis and can add/remove chores as needed.

Our new cleaning chart

This is the first of a few new cleaning charts I devised after being inspired by MeckMom. I have one for the general room cleaning, one for each of the girls' bedrooms and a third chart for toys.

This is our main room cleaning chart. It has pictures of all the rooms in the house that I want the girls to help clean and an envelope to hold the various jobs they will be doing. The week starts with all 5 rooms on the "To Do" side. One of my two older girls turns away from the chart while the other arranges the rooms in any order she wants. Then the other girl, who is still turned away from the board, chooses a number from 1-5 and that's the room we clean for the day. When the room is finished, the picture gets moved to the "Done" side and the next day we'll have 4 rooms to choose from.

After we pick the room, we remove the jobs from the job envelope.

There are several jobs in the envelope - sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the mirrors, straightening book shelves, etc. We first have to decide which jobs apply to our room of the day and then we flip them over so we can't see the pictures, mix them up and choose our job. Not everything that has to be done is pictured. I just chose some major tasks that can be done by anyone or with minimal help from me. The 3yo also chooses a job, only she is my "helper" for that task. The remaining jobs are assigned by me as-needed and according to age/skill level.

Some weeks we will shift focus and do a light basic cleaning and work on cleaning the closet or washing baseboards, windows or the walls. We don't clean EVERYTHING, every week or we'd all get burned out. This method assures that the house gets a good cleaning each week and a thorough cleaning each month. My girls like the "game" aspect of this system and whatever makes cleaning more fun for them, definitely makes it more fun for me.

What we're using this year

This is Adventure's in My Father's World and will be used by Sydney. The other two girls will sit in and "help" with some of the lessons. Sydney will also be taking US Geography and art in co op and will be involved with girl scouts and A Life of Faith club.

Delaney will be using My Father's World's 1st grade program. She will also be taking Spanish and ballet at co op and will be in Brownies and A Life of Faith Club.

Sadey will have her own preschool program and will also be attending my 3yo co op class with 12-15 other preschoolers on Friday mornings.

In case you're wondering....

In case you're wondering if it's possible to clean up a quart of green paint that's been spilled on the carpet right outside your child's bedroom door at 1AM without waking up said child...the answer is YES! Be sure to use firm pressure, a gallon of water and lots and lots and lots and lots of paper towels.

Bet you can't guess how we figured that one out.

In other news: our main bathroom is now a lovely shade of sage green....

Some things make me smile. Some things warm my heart.

First the silly....

My poor Delaney has been awfully sick for most of this week, but today she was finally feeling a little better. Obviously!

Delaney always knows how to make me laugh. What a true blessing she is to our family.

And then the sweet....

Sydney is an entrepreneur with a big heart. It seems like she's been trying to start her own business for most of the last 2 years with the intention of donating any money she's earned to the Salvation Army kettles. She's had her own lemonade stand, book store, sticker store, stencil store, art studio, hand knitting shop - the list is truly endless. Unfortunately, most of her businesses are run out of our living room and since we live in the country with no family nearby, her customer base has been pretty limited. Recently, however, she hit upon a great idea which has become her service project for the year. She's decided to make dog treats, sell them to friends and family (us) and then donate the proceeds to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Lilley, our dog, couldn't be happier about the new venture because she gets to be the guinea pooch.

She is still in the research phase, but Sydney has been busy! She's trying to find (1) a recipe that's easy enough to make herself and (2) uses healthy ingredients that (3) won't cost an arm and a leg to produce. Tonight I helped her make the first batch of treats for her Puppy Perfect project. Unfortunately the CEO had to go to bed before the treats cooled enough for our guinea pooch to do her job, but I'm sure Lilley will love them in the morning.

The biscuits in this picture aren't beautiful, but right now she's just trying to find a workable recipe. She'll "pretty them up" before they go on the market.

So far this has been a great multi-discipline project. Between researching Make-A-Wish, shopping, cooking and planning her packages we've managed to hit Bible, science, math, language arts, home ec, computer skills and art - only to name a few. This is definitely one of those win-win kind of projects.

How much fun can you have with $1.00?

One of our goals for the summer was to construct and erupt volcanoes. We made them in June (see picture here), but never got around to the big eruption until tonight. It's amazing how much fun you can have with sawdust, glue, rocks, sticks and twigs from the yard, baking soda, vinegar and food coloring.

My Favorite Things...

as expressed by Todd Wilson, Familyman Ministries

Favorite things about homeschooling . . . hmmm . . . favorite things . . . favorite things.

(Queue the music.)

School in my pjs and short simple school days
Hot steaming coffee and basking in sunrays
Children that miss out on lots of 'bad' things
These are a few of my favorite things

Oom pah pa . . . oom pah pa

Mountains of good books and time for their hobbies
Learning to be godly daddies and mommies
Chores and routines that help keep our house clean
These are a few of my favorite things

Babies and toddlers and growing teenagers
All in the same house without social dangers
Living and learning although the phone rings
These are a few of my favorite things

When the kids scream
When I am mean
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feeeeeeelllll sooo baaaad.

These are my favorite things too. Thanks for being so creative, Todd!!!!

Peek A Boo!

My first minivan had two bench seats and I always thought my life would be simpler with captain's chairs. I don't know why. It just seemed like it would be roomier for the kids, I guess. Well we got a new van last October and I was so thrilled to finally have my captain's chairs! But I hated them. It was impossible to help whoever was in the third row get buckled in properly, there was no place for groceries and the aisle between the seats was way too narrow. Since we really only needed three seats, we decided to take the 4th one out of the van and store it for awhile. I love the new arrangement because I finally have a place to put my groceries and I can easily reach into the third row to buckle my youngest into her carseat.

We removed the seat and needed to find a place to store it. Our garage is loaded with the homeowners' things, but my husband was determined to make some room in there for the seat. He works 10 hour days and can really only do projects like this on the weekend, so the chair sat on the back porch for a week until he had more time. Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to us, a bird decided that my van seat would be a great place for a nest.

Who can blame the bird though? It does look like a safe and cozy spot to raise a family! (Please ignore the mess, we were cleaning the porch/garage when I snapped the picture). Apparently there's just enough of a gap where the seat folds over to make the perfect nesting spot.

So now we are hosting three gorgeous baby birds. Aren't they adorable?

I have no idea how I'm going to clean that seat up once the babies leave the nest! In the meantime, we've been learning quite a bit about birds. My oldest did some research and found out that the old myth about touching baby birds is untrue. It seems that birds have a horrible sense of smell and really don't care if you touch their babies. However, the babies are extremely fragile and can be easily injured by even the most careful human. So, for now, we watch and look forward to the day they fly off into the trees.

Do you like them, Sam I am?

Not only is Green Eggs and Ham my all-time favorite Dr Seuss book, but it also made a delicious dinner for Family Night.

The girls were a little unsure about eating them at first, but they were so excited about the color that they gobbled them all up...even though they weren't sunny side up like the eggs in the book.

Vision Statement

We decided to homeschool by accident. A friend told me she was thinking of homeschooling her then 2 year old daughter and I was convinced it was the wrong thing to do. Afterall I was an expert on such things. I possessed a public school education, a bachelor's in elementary education, a 2 year old of my own and I knew one homeschooling family whose children seemed a little socially inept. Surely I knew what was best for my friend's daughter! So I rattled off my list of reasons as to why homeschooling would be an irresponsible choice for this mom (yes, I even mentioned the dreaded socialization issue ) and my friend had a clever response to each objection. Not to be easily dissuaded, I went straight to the library to reload. I read every book on homeschooling and before I knew it, I was convinced. I was now certain that not only should my friend homeschool her daughter, but we should also homeschool ours!

My husband, who had a less than stellar academic background, was fully on board from the beginning. So off we went to our first homeschool convention when our daughter was barely 2 years old. Perhaps we were a little on the early side, but we were soaking up all the information we could get our hands on. We walked into the convention hall and I actually started crying. I was so relieved to see throngs of "normal" looking people versus...Well I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was certain that the only people who homeschooled were the large families who all wore matching, homemade outfits and played musical instruments together. To be sure, we did see a few families like that - but there were also families in jeans and t's with kids running around acting like...kids!

So our first convention was back in 2000 and here it is 2008! I can't believe we've been at this (in one form or another) for 8 years already! I remember those first couple of years when I was doing "organized play" for preschool and feeling like we'd never get to the "real" academic subjects. Here we are all those years later with kids in 4th, 1st and preK and feeling like we are already behind! How did that happen when we had such an early start???

I know the answer to that question. We never sat down and made a vision statement for our school. We've been very fortunate to have been led by God to a couple of wonderful programs that we've used for our main curriculum and I learned very early on that:

1. You have to trust the curriculum and
2. All curricula basically teach the same stuff. Be patient and you will eventually fill in any perceived gaps.

Those two little tidbits saved us quite a bit of potential curriculum hopping over the years! But I was never really sure we were on the right path. Then I started hearing and reading about the importance of vision statements for our homeschools and it all fell into place. If we have a conscise vision statement (or statment of purpose) for our school, we can use that as the benchmark for choosing curriculum and evaluating our efforts. There was another *duh!* moment for me. Once we set our priorities, we'll know if XYZ history is going to meet our needs or if ABC extracurricular activity will be worth the havoc it wreaks on our weekly schedule. We'll know if teaching a certain subject is truly necessary or just twaddle (my new favorite Charlotte Mason word) that corrodes what could be free time.

So 8 years after officially declaring ourselves homeschoolers, my husband and I finally sat down to write our vision statement. It's a work in progress so I won't post it yet, but it began with a simple question:

"Why are we homeschooling?"

It seems like a simple question and one that should be very easy to answer, doesn't it? Hmph!!!! This simple little question turned into a 4+ hour discussion that lasted until the very wee hours of the morning! It was nice to sit down and really discuss with my husband what we are doing and why we are doing it. It's a conversation that we really haven't had since my oldest was in a stroller and homeschooling was just a novel idea. Now that she's a 'tween, no longer an only child and talking about ideas and goals of her own, our thoughts and priorites have changed.

Writing this vision statement isn't only interesting, but it's really helping us narrow our focus and "get real" (sorry Dr. Phil) about what we are doing and WHY we are doing it. I didn't see the point when I had one Kindergarten student, but there's definitely value in defining purpose.

BTW, over the years I've come to know and love several large, clothes sewing, guitar playing families and my friend decided to put her daughter in public school so she could be a light amidst the darkness. Go figure.

Summer Vacation

June 6th was our 180th day of school - our last required day to meet the state standards. I had planned to take a week off and then jump right back into our studies and keep right on trucking through the summer while it's too hot and humid to play outside much. Thank you Florida. The pace would slow and we wouldn't necessarily school every day, but I didn't plan to change what we had been doing. Then I read a newlsetter about vacations and an article by Todd Wilson that really struck a nerve. He reminded me of the NEED to take a summer vacation and the NEED to "put on our FUN hats". He went on to say, "You need to enjoy your children as children NOT as students, and your children need to experience you as their mother NOT as their teacher."

Ding ding ding ding!!!!

Oh man did I NEED to hear that! I have not really been enjoying my children lately. We've been fretting with each other a bit too much and Mr. Wilson was right. We DO need to take time to experience each other as mother and daughters.

So, we finished our "official" school year on June 6th and my oldest (the party planning queen) had a big end of the year party planned for June 7th and then we spent the next couple of months relaxing and enjoying each other. I came up with a list of things that we had been meaning to do but kept putting off like building a volcano, making a nature journal, learning how to sew, binding the books the girls have written, reading, playing games, riding bikes as a family...and then we spent some time working on the list. We didn't get it all done, but we had fun along the way. Isn't that what summer is all about?

Homeschooling really IS cool

I'm actually cheating here and transferring an old post from another blog of mine. A blog that I have largely neglected, but there are a couple of posts on there that I would like to preserve...

My girls amaze me. They are such deep thinkers. I wonder if I asked such tough questions when I was their ages or if I just accepted whatever information was thrown my way? I'm a people pleaser, so I'm guessing that I was one of those ideal public school students who sucked up any information I was given and then spit it back out on test day. I know I've certainly forgotten most of what I've learned even though I was an honor student. My husband laughed when I told him my favorite part of homeschooling was learning the history and science I had already forgotten. I truly can't remember much of it - even what I was supposed to have learned in college.

Things are different with my girls though. They seem to have a better understanding of what they are learning and how it all fits together. I won't even fantasize that it's because I'm such a fabulous teacher. That would be laughable. I think they "get it" because they have time to take in the information, ask questions, read historical fiction, take field trips and do projects that seem to tie everything together in a way that never seemed to happen for me in the classroom. I know my teachers tried to do those things. But they never could tell if we understood what was being said or if we were totally bored with the subject and just wanted to get to recess or art class. At home, we aren't in a big hurry to finish a book by the end of the year. We don't have to teach to any test. They can absorb the information, apply it and ask the tough questions that, I think, most kids are too busy or too rushed to ask.

I don't mean to imply that my girls LOVE everything we study. That would be awesome, but it's definitely not true. They do seem to want to learn what I am trying to teach them though. It's not just a bunch of facts and figures. It all has an importance to them in one way or another. They want to learn math facts so they can count their money or divide up their toys. They have an understanding of and appreciation for the struggle the early settlers had (from Biblical thru Colonial times) in a way I never grasped. For me, it was just a bunch of facts to memorize. For my girls, it's about the people. They have a deep compassion that I think is taken out of the equation in public schools. I love knowing that they are learning about the struggle as much as they are learning about the dates.

I never thought I'd say it, but homeschool is cool

My Intro

I can't do too much damage after such an inspired entry title, can I? Well I suppose a brief intro is in order since this is my first post and all...

Who we are: My name is Pam. I am 37 and have been married to my hubby B for 15 years. We are beginning our 7th year of homeschooling our 3 beautiful and fun-loving daughters ages 9, 6 and 3.

Curriculum: In February 2008 we began using Adventures in My Father's World and LOVE it. We are also using Math U See, First Language Lessons and I Can Do All Things (Art). Before our big switch to MFW, we were die hard Weaver users. Unfortunately our less than stellar library and slow internet connection always left me feeling ill-prepared to handle the Weaver objectives. It's a wonderful curriculum though and we may go back to it in the future, but it's just not for us right now.

So that's us in a nutshell. Eventually I'll figure out how to post photos so you can see all the fun stuff we've been up to this year.