Friday, August 28, 2009

My Toddler

Two new things my toddler just learned how to do:


1)  Press the button on the pens to make the tip come out. (She's known how to take pen lids off for a long time.)


2) Open doors. Including the front door. And, I put on the toddler proof handles and she got past them.


It's getting interesting. Yesterday, I took my turn working at our business and my husband homeschooled. When I came home in the evening, my desk chair, bible, a kitchen chair, the white board (NOT with a dry erase), and a toddler was written on. Also, there was a Sharpie on the floor without a lid, which we never did find. Jon says she did it all in two minutes and that her big sister was in charge of the pens.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Toddlers & Homeschooling

This is what happens to your timeline (that you just made) when you have a toddler. And, no, I cannot just use it the way it is.... And, no, I do not just let her grab the permanent marker...she is VERY good at getting into drawers, up on counters, in pen cups to find the permanent markers. I would have to keep all pens on top of the refrigerator. Oh, well...she is cute...


timeline


We got started with school starting yesterday. It is going well. It's so nice to have activities for the kids today, they are a lot more well behaved that way. So, even if school is more work for me, I'm not sure I come out too far behind. We worked on a map of where Gladys Aylward, missionary to China, traveled today. My kids are fascinated with maps, so they were thrilled. I've always wanted to do more map study, but was frustrated with the sources I could find. I found two this year that look to be good...Knowledge Quest Blackline Maps and Evan-Moor World Reference Maps.


gladys_aylward


I'm sure I'll tweak my schedule, so I'll keep you posted on how this year goes. Right now, no surprise, it looks like I need to tweak it slightly downward. But, the kids love having a schedule and switching activities and keeping lessons short. The only downside, I see to keeping lessons short, is when they are liking what they are doing. Sometimes something you've scheduled twenty minutes for takes an hour and really it is unhelpful to their love of learning to hurry them along.

Newest Calf

Here is a picture of our newest calf. This Momma wasn't supposed to have a calf. She was a twin with a boy. Those are called Free Martins and they usually are meaty enough to give as much meat as a boy cow. Even though Free Martins are female, because of the extra boy hormones they get en utero, they usually can't have babies. But, she got pregnant. And, Jon (my husband) was blessed enough to notice the event. So, here nine months later is our little calf. She looks like she will be a good Momma.


 

frannie_and_baby

Timelines & Toddlers

This is what happens to your timeline (that you just made) when you have a toddler. And, no, I cannot just use it the way it is.... And, no, I do not just let her grab the permanent marker...she is VERY good at getting into drawers, up on counters, in pen cups to find the permanent markers. I would have to keep all pens on top of the refrigerator. Oh, well... she is cute...

timeline

We got started with school starting yesterday. It is going well. It's so nice to have activities for the kids today, they are a lot more well behaved that way. So, even if school is more work for me, I'm not sure I come out too far behind. We worked on a map of where Gladys Aylward, missionary to China, traveled today. My kids are fascinated with maps, so they were thrilled. I've always wanted to do more map study, but was frustrated with the sources I could find. I found two this year that look to be good...Knowledge Quest Blackline Maps and Evan-Moor World Reference Maps.

gladys_aylward

I'm sure I'll tweak my schedule, so I'll keep you posted on how this year goes. Right now, no surprise, it looks like I need to tweak it slightly downward. But, the kids love having a schedule and switching activities and keeping lessons short. The only downside, I see to keeping lessons short, is when they are liking what they are doing. Sometimes something you've scheduled twenty minutes for takes an hour and really it is unhelpful to their love of learning to hurry them along.

Friday, August 21, 2009

School Schedule

Does it ever seem to you as if God has woken you up to do something in the middle of the night. Sometimes that thing is pray, but sometimes it might be something like put your school schedule together. It was all clear in my mind in the middle of the night. Here it is. This may change...as we see how it works, but I'm excited to have a working schedule.

School Schedule

 

Mon

Tues

Wed

Thur

Fri

8-8:30

Breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast

8:30-9:30

Chores

Chores

Chores

Chores

Chores

Done Early??

Free Time

Free Time

Free Time

Free Time

Free Time

9:30-9:50

Bible Reading

Bible Reading

Bible Reading

Bible Reading

Bible Reading

9:50-10:10

Math

Math

Math

Math

Math

10:10-10:40

History Reading & Narration

History Reading & Narration

History Reading & Narration

History Reading & Narration

History Reading & Narration

10:40-11:00

Hymn Memorization

Geography

Hymn Memorization

Timeline

Hymn Memorization

11:00-11:30

Nat

Reading/ Written Narration

Reading/ Written Narration

Reading/ Written Narration

Reading/ Written Narration

Writing Assignment

Rach

Phonics/ Reading

Phonics/ Reading

Phonics/ Reading

Phonics/ Reading

Phonics/ Reading

11:30-11:50

Violin

Violin

Violin

Violin

Violin

11:50-12:10

Nat

Copywork (Free Choice)

Cursive

Copywork (Free Choice)

Cursive

Copywork (Free Choice)

Rach

Abeka Copywork

Abeka Copywork

Abeka Copywork

Abeka Copywork

Abeka Copywork

12:10-12:40

LUNCH

LUNCH

LUNCH

LUNCH

LUNCH

1:00-3:00

Abigail Nap

Abigail Nap

Abigail Nap

Abigail Nap

Abigail Nap

12:40-1:00

Free Reading/Lit (Nat Read to Rach)

Free Reading/Lit (Nat Read to Rach)

Free Reading/Lit (Nat Read to Rach)

Free Reading/Lit (Nat Read to Rach)

Free Reading/Lit (Nat Read to Rach)

1:00-1:20

Poetry Memorization

Spelling

Poetry Memorization

Poetry Memorization

Spelling

1:20-1:40

Science

Science

Science

Science

Lapbooking

AFTERNOON

Free Time, Nature Study, Crafts

3:15-4:00

 

 

 

Get Ready/Leave For Dance

 

4:00-6:00

 

 

 

Dance

 

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Birthday Girl

When it comes to birthday time, I'm always reminiscing. Rachel is my cute, spunky, enthusiastic, honest, and quirky little girl. She was my plump little baby, and she is today just as cuddly as she was as a newborn (only with more kicking). I wanted to share some pictures from today and from our history. I can't believe she's six. To me she seems frozen at the three year old picture with her wearing the green dress, which I share below. But, that was three years ago and she certainly is growing up.


 

rachey_baby
My newborn babe.


 

rach_toddler
My toddler.


 

rach_bday_3
She's three years old in this picture. Her five year old sister (now eight) is behind her.


 

rachey_beach
Just recently at the beach.


 

rachey_jumping
This picture is so Rachey.


 

rachey_up_close
The Birthday Girl!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Charlotte Mason

Here is a quote from Charlotte Mason from today that I thought particularly noteworthy:

"what if the devitalisation we notice in so many of our young people, keen about games but dead to things of the mind, is due to the processes carried on in our schools, to our plausible and pleasant ways of picturing, eliciting, demonstrating, illustrating, summarising, doing all those things for children which they are born with the potency to do for themselves?"

Thursday, August 13, 2009

What I'm Trying To Do

This is what I'm trying to put together:

I'm trying to come up with booklists and also a 36-week schedule that will take a multi-student approach to a Charlotte Mason style learning program. The only real difference say of my 3rd grader and my 1st grader is that the 1st grader has a shorter attention span and cannot read the books herself. So, I limit the amount of material covered with my first grader and i do more read alouds with her. Including having her sister do some read alouds to her, which her sister really doesn't mind. This way, they can both cover one time period. In our case we are on 1600-1850 (Late Renaissance to Early Modern). I will try and pull only living, non-TWADDLE, non-repetitive, one-author books in. I will base my selections around Ambelside Online but also take other recommendations from Baldwins and from an Old Fashioned Eduction, as well as taking selections from Sonlight and Robinson. For science, we'll mainly be covering physical science - geography, astronomy that sort of thing. Although, as always, our nature walks will predominantly be our science focus (I hope). I've spend two days compiling booklists from the afore mentioned places and labeling them according to the time period they are applicable to. Wish me blessings. I want to have everything planned out BEFORE school starts this year and take the planning of future years at a slower pace than I have this year. At least I have a clear goal in mind now.

Blessings to you and your homeschool plans! What are you all doing? It's so neat to me how God leads each person in such a unique way. :)

Camping

We enjoyed our long weekend camping. We went to the Olympic National Park. It was a bit cold in the evenings and the campsite wasn't as toddler friendly. This made it a little less relaxing to me than our previous trip. The hikes and outings made it fully worth the inconveniences, however, and I came back from the weekend refreshed.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

abigail

girls

rocks_nat

riah_cup

striated_rock_1

striated_rock_2

nat_riah

olympics
The Olympics

cloud_rolling_in
Can you feel the cloud rolling in over the hill?

deer_2
Isn't this just too pretty?

nat

port_angeles
Port Angeles

deer
I could not believe how close this deer was letting me get to him.

butterfly_bee

ptarmigan
These Ptarmigan's were incredibly friendly too. They totally look like young chickens to me. They looked almost identical to a pullet (a not yet egg laying chicken) and did the same things as chickens - free ranging, dirt baths.

abigail_sad
Abigail is sad here because we were done with our three hour hike and we were getting her down from the backpack! I guess she wanted it to last longer.

ocean_5
Ruby Beach

ocean_1

ocean_2
Abigail was not so thrilled with the Ocean. She wanted to go all the way up to the water, but was not very happy when a wave came in. She loved playing in the sand though.

ocean_3

ocean_4

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Bumblebees

I got a hankering to take pictures of bumblebees today. They are real challenging critters to get a picture of. They move around so quickly and to get a good shot I had to get good and close to them. Unlike yellow jackets (which I've never had the hankering to take a picture of), bumblebees seem rather shy. They tend to fly away when you approach them. When I was a little girl, I got stung by I don't know how many bees, including a bumblebee. I think I just must have found them fascinating and wanted to touch them. I worry about that with my little toddler. She went walking right over one today in her sandals, oblivious, but luckily she didn't get stung.

As I was taking pictures of the bumblebees, the sun started getting less strong, and the bumblebees went into hiding. So, I switched over to flowers and fruit. Does anyone know what the fruit is??

bumblebee_1

bumblebee_2

rose_2

fruit

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Our Trip

I'm settling in after our trip. It looks to be a mellow week. I'm staying inside mostly as we've been having record heat - over and near one hundred. Too hot for me. Too hot for most people around here. I wanted to share some photos of our family from our trip. I hope you enjoy them almost as much as I do. :)

yellowstone_people_mom_abigail

yellowstone_people_fishing

yellowstone_people_rach

yellowstone_people_riah

yellowstone_people_ab

yellowstone_people_ab_3

yellowstone_people_dirt

yellowstone_people_nat_boy

yellowstone_people_fishing_pole