Triumph, a page at the time

 It is a long time coming, but I'm claiming a cautious triumph today in reading.  I set a firm rule of 20 minutes of reading a day a few weeks ago for LB.  It has been painful to get her to complete that goal.  She is a terrific reader but lacks confidence.  Sunday,  she read Marley the Farm Dog because I wanted her to read a full story that she'd find easy.  Monday, she reread it, twice.  Tuesday, I picked up another Marley book for her to read and Trumpet of the Swan to use for copywork.  She asked if she could read Trumpet of the Swan instead which I agreed to but cautioned her about the small font.  She read two pages and was exceedingly proud.

Today, I offered Marley for reading again, but she chose Trumpet again.  She didn't want to stop after a page.  She didn't stop until she finished the chapter.  She asked if she could just read Trumpet of the Swan for reading until she finished it.  She declared that enormous is an easy word, but not as much fun to read as sizzled.  It helps that she's listened to E.B. White read Trumpet of the Swan to her a few nights a week for the past few years and that it is her favorite book in the world.  I should probably give him credit for writing such a terrific book, but I'm still claiming a small victory bringing another child into the literary world one page at the time.

For once

For once I'd like a miracle
I can't take much more than this
I'm looking for something stronger than a wish
Something better than a present
I'm looking for a miracle
It seems like every night we get all fussy and frustrated


This is the song LB made up while she was supposed to be brushing her teeth.  Apparently, she can't take much more than this - being asked to brush her teeth before bed. 

She sang it before brushing, while brushing, after brushing, while getting her jammies, and picking out her story.  Really.  I only told her to get ready for bed twice.  Hubby and I smiled because she is the least dramatic of our three kids. 

Remembered

This Book is All Phonics!

We picked up Dr. Suess's Hop on Pop this week at the local used book store. Hubby gave it to LB to "read" in bed since her sister gets to read in bed after bedtime stories. She brought the book down to the living room about a 15 minutes later with a giant grin on her little face exclaiming that she could read it.

Then she curled up in my lap with the book to demonstrate her newly discovered skill. As she was sounding out the words and reading the pages, she realized, "This book is all phonics." I tried to tell her that reading is actually all about phonics, but she wasn't convinced.

The previous night she had been getting distracted while I read Go, Dog, Go to her because she kept reading the words unintentionally.

Four O'Clock On a Wednesday Afternoon

Three days until the end of school.
Right now, LB is sitting at the other end of my work desk with glitter, glue, scissors, and watercolor paint. She is working on a big project.

CC is sitting on the couch in my office reading Oh Rats by Albert Marrin. She has Diogenes sitting next to her to read next.

So far today, this is the only schooling they have done. BB took them shopping to get them out of the house for a few hours. Each had a little money to spend. CC wanted a purse and perfume. She had enough leftover for a bownie for herself and a cookie for her sister. Nice budgeting.

We're doing math in about a half an hour.

My idea of a homeschool day is growing. Instead of trying to get through the work so that we can do something else, we have learned that a work day is a work day is a school day. We are stretching the work throughout the day. Getting done sooner doesn't mean that we are finished with our day.

And in the time that it took me to write this, she finished both the books. The rat book is gross, and didn't have anything she didn't already know but some kids might like it. She wasn't sure what the audience for the Diogenes book is supposed to be. The reading level was kind of high for a kids book, but there wasn't any real content. She's watching Mythbusters on Netflix now because she has a sprained ankle and is forced to be still.

Right now in my homeschool

The girls are sitting at the kitchen table with a rock identification kit for each girl. The oldest is indentifying 15 rocks based on their properties. The youngest is comparing the rocks to see which ones leave what color streaks, which ones are magnetic or reactive to acid, and washing them all with a paint brush etc.


Science, thinking, education. All happening right up there where I can see them while I am supposed to be in the family room/office working. Instead, I am distracted by how amazing they are.

Slowing down for summer

We have 8 days of school left plus testing. Right now, I have a bowl of freshly picked white roses on my desk with a Middle Ages activity book and a bar chart of survey results so I know the kids had school today.


The girls caught the dog earlier. I think they are planning to have her star in a movie. BB just brought home groceries; blackerries are on sale. We are slowing down. The days are long, warm and sunny. We've decided that it is best to do schoolwork in the afternoon when its too hot to play outside.

Eight more days plus testing then this year is over.

Golly do I feel grown up

Right now, I am sitting in a sunny window drinking a glass of white wine, waiting for my salmon to finish cooking and reading Nicomachean Ethics. These are amazing, grown up things that you never get to do when you have small kids. Who can follow Aristotle with kids playing in the same room?


The kids and daddy are on their way home. The house fan is on because the marinade I put on the salmon caught fire which means I'm having smoked salmon, again. My feet are dirty because I've been in the garden all day, and I'm typing funny because I have Hello Kitty band-aides on my index fingers, plus I smashed one with a sledge hammer. And I miss hubby and the kids! There is the kind of quiet that is good for your soul that refreshes and renews and gives you peace then there is reading Aristotle alone for hours quiet.

They've been gone since last Tuesday and the quiet is settling in around here. I miss the smiles and the noise and the hugs and the warmth of a home full of family and little ones. Much more of this and I might pick up Melville again right after I start drinking something really strong and find some good cigars - or a pipe. Maybe Cicero would be healthier.

The best all around homeschool gadget.

Thanks to my new homeschool-helper I am having a very good day.

Picture this - eating fruit-filled crepes for breakfast and listening to your children learn Japanese from a patient and enthusiastic teacher. It isn't a dream; it was my morning. It is amazing. BB made breakfast and played "Mother May I" with the girls then supervised math and taught Japanese. He also listened to Shakespeare recitations and made lunch. I think he's just what every homeschool parent needs.



BB is a young man full of potential with the whole world ahead of him, and his sisters adore him.

I am very far from figuring out my new job and even further from figuring out how to make it work with homeschooling. However, while I figure these things out, I have terrific, bright kids and great support.

Arts and Ideas

Saturday morning before I went to work, I helped CC sew wings onto a dragon and helped LB work on a swing made from K'nex. As I drove to work, I thought about the "arts and ideas" charter school in our neighborhood.

I am firmly on the side of imagination. I spend a lot of our time and money adding art enrichment to our lives. I work hard to create an environment in which inquiry science can thrive.
I also try to put most of my energy into getting the core subjects done. Arts and Ideas need language and math.
My goals for this week:
Make sure CC finishes her dragon for art class
Help LB finish her swing so I can have my table back.
CC needs help making a new chocolate that she has been thinking about and wants to finish before school this week. She also needs to select and print pictures of our vacation to the coast for her scrapbook project.
I want to help LB finish her digital story book.
We need to accomplish 4 chapters of Fred and 4 chapters of Saxon, and some Miquon.
We need to do 3 hours of French, 4 copywork exercises, 4 chapters in the Mary Queen of Scots book, finish Peter Pan, do a section in MCT Grammar, Poetry, and Vocabulary, and maybe read some of our viking book, some fairy tales, Shakespeare, and do some phonics.

Yep, we are all about art and ideas here. No time for rigorous work. We'll get started just as soon as CC finishes hemming that princess dress she is making for LB.

Homeschool Bliss

Shhhh. I have to note this date as one of those perfect homeschool days.

I awoke this morning to find CC doing her math and watching Popular Mechanics for Kids
on itunes. She'd already eaten breakfast and was almost ready finished with her math lesson. LB was still asleep and didn't awaken until after the coffee was finished and I had checked CC's work. Hubby made breakfast for us while CC and I buddy-read her reading assignment then we ate while CC did her writing. She started working on her history reading while LB and I did her copywork and I read her a story.

Okay, school was over by 10am, and I didn't even wake up early. While I was out feeding the chickens, the girls pulled out more history books. Weird kids, but I like them. Right now they are playing, snow is blowing outside, hubby is driving back from the airport with BB home for the holidays, and there is a big pot of beef stew simmering.

I'm pretty sure this is a perfect homeschooling day.

That was a long time ago

LB and I had this discussion this week while she was in the tub:
LB: "When did the dinosaurs all die?"
Me: "Except for the ones that didn't die out, most went extinct about 65 million years ago."
LB: "Wow, that was a long time ago. It was even before Liam's birthday party."

In case you don't know Liam. His birthday party was last Sunday.

8 bags until I start to feel weird

Some small moments in your life really let you stop and see yourself from the outside. This morning, I had one of those rare moments.

At 9:30 I roll myself out of bed so that I can get the trash out before the trash guy comes by. I pull on jeans and decide to keep on the pajama shirt, because I have to shower later. Then I go downstairs, put the dog out, put out the trash and recycling and notice that the neighbor has about 14 bags of leaves on the curb next to her trash can. Her car isn't in the driveway so I don't even bother to knock and ask. I just grab two bags and walk them back across the cul-de-sac and toss them over my fence. Two people are walking their dogs, and I say "Good Morning" but they don't seem to hear me.

I go back for more and more dog-walkers come by. By the sixth bag and the fifth dog-walker, I start to feel conspicuous - is it the pajama shirt, jeans and snow boots or the uncombed hair or maybe the fact that I am stealing garbage bags and throwing them over a fence? By the eighth bag, I decide that I am actually quite weird and I still need to empty the trash cans inside. I pause on the way inside to pull some cereal boxes from my trash, take the bags of crumbs back inside to feed to the chickens and tuck the boxes in the recycle bin. Like I needed the eight bags of stolen trash to tell me I was weird.

And in case you were wondering, once the girls, and I emptied the leaves into the chicken yard, we jumped in them piled them up and jumped again and again. It was certainly worth the theft, I only regret that the trash guy came before I could go back for the rest.

Bo's Costume - part 1

This is Bo. He is LB's son, and he wants to be a spider for Halloween. CC is making him a costume.

I wanted her to use a pattern, but of course we couldn't find a spider costume pattern in his size so CC had to make one. She has a book on sewing that she has been reading and a book on doll making and a yard of black satin. Yesterday, she sketched out what the costume should look like, and this morning I helped her measure the Bo's sister, Princess, for a pattern. Since I left for work, she has created her pattern, cut it out and done the first fitting. Right now, she is creating the pattern for the spider legs, and next she is going to make pants to match.


I'm proud of her creativity, ingenuity, sewing skills, and sisterly love - after all this is something she is doing for her sister.

The difference between Big and Old

When my kids were little, each of them would come into my room in the morning and cuddle with me before breakfast. Eventually, each would woutgrow this, but I have always treasured the little bit of quiet time with them in the mornings. This past year, CC had started getting up and making her own breakfast then enjoying her own quiet time downstairs alone. However, this morning, she was happily snuggled next to me.

We had a nice chat while hubby and LB were making pancakes. She told me that she had started spending time alone in the mornings because it made her feel big, but since she got the puppy she has been saving for for so long, now she had started to feel old instead. She has realized that having true responsibility for the puppy has made her feel different. She had come to snuggle with me as a way to feel little and cuddly again and escape for a bit from feeling old. We decided that maybe her sister should wait until she is 10 to get a puppy, because we don't want her to grow up too soon.

You want to know what my kids are doing right now?

I think it must be a girl thing. We picked up a few seeds today - just one pack each. So right now they are in the middle of the kitchen floor decorating the seed trays and making labels.

Each potential plant has been named and will have a little label with its name on it and some pretty pictures for them to enjoy. LB just told me, "Mommy, I'm going to stick the name on each plant when it grows so that we know what its name is. Isn't that a good idea?" How do you answer cute logic like that? Oh and she has carrot seeds. CC has watermelons.

Wordless Wednesday - Swimming Grizzlies

Beginning Readers and Little Sisters

Last week, CC helped LB sound out her first words while we were driving. LB has been learning the letter sounds and has been learning to spell. She is on verge of starting to read.

This morning, CC wrote and illustrated a beginning reader for her sister. She wanted only words that her sister could sound out, and she wanted to make sure there weren't many blends in it and that it wasn't too complex but was still interesting. She decided that she likes sentences that build up from words so that her sister can get confidence reading words she has already sounded out. Once she finishes adding color to the pictures, I'll upload pictures of the book. Here is the Story:

Cats and Dogs
Cats and Dogs run.
Cats and Dogs run fast.
Cats and Dogs sit.
The End.

It is simple and sweet. It is also the perfect first reader.

Three Little Pigs

"Little pig, little pig, Let me in!"
"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

This morning CC gave a very lively retelling of this favorite to her sister and some of their toys.

After she finished the story, she asked me if she had forgotten any parts. She loves telling stories and has a great memory for them. It reminded me that while I read many books to LB, I haven't read very many of those classic tales to her. I think she mostly hears them from her sister. I'm going to make sure I make time to read them to both of the girls.