The Beach

The kids first time at the beach did not turn out the way I hoped. A few minute into it, R went to far, got swept away, lost her boot to the wave, was freezing, and didn’t want to come out of the RV after that. S was scared to go near the water after seeing Sissy washed away, so he went back to the RV also. P was thrilled with the beach though. So the two of us spent some time playing in the sand, chasing sea gulls, and finding shells. She was on cloud nine. At least one of the children really enjoyed the experience .  I also got to take some pics. of the sunset.    

Things That Make Hard Days Worth It

Yesterday was a VERY hard day! All of my children woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The fits, the attitudes, were many. They kept coming at me all day long! I thought, who abducted my children and replaced them with these monsters?

All day I remained calm and dealt with each new instance, with resolve to not let them get the best of me. I tried to train their hearts and minds. As evening came they had worn me down . I put the girls in bed and told them that I was in no mood to pray with them that night. That daddy would be in to pray, but I was not calm enough to be a part of it. Now, I don’t think I have ever not prayed with them. However, I knew that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind.

After they were down, I cried, I prayed. I felt defeated. Fast forward to this morning. Jeff got the girls up like he always does. About 5 min. after they woke up, they came into the school room where I was sitting drinking my coffee. They were holding a valentine they had made at the library craft time. They hadn’t decided who they were going to give it to yet.  Well, they decided to give it to me . Then they asked me to come see something in their room. When I got there, I was surprised to find their room all clean. They said, “Mommy, we cleaned up our room, because we are sorry about how we acted yesterday.” I started crying again, but now with tears of joy!

As mothers we have those hard day, where neither us nor our children are at our best (far from it). This morning reminded me that, my goal is not to have perfectly behaved children. My goal is to raise people that learn form their mistakes, and have repentant hearts. Also their desire to please me made my heart soar. I try to build relationship with my dear little ones. I want them to obey me out of love, not fear (as much as possible). Them telling me that they will try harder today, the hugs, the kisses, were such an encouragement! Pray for your child’s heart today, not just their behaviors.

The New RV

Here it is!

Jeff and I sleep on the queen size bed above the cab.

The Kitchen and couch wall slide out to make it much more roomy than you see here.

The girls bunks.

The bunks and back bedroom wall slide out also (very nice living space).

The back room is S’s (he sleeps in the porta crib). It also doubles as a playroom/storage room. There are cabinets above the porta crib (not shown), so there’s plenty of storage.

Maybe some other time I will put up pics. of it with the slides out. But for now you can see what a blessing this is to us. And we plan to use it to the fullest; for the good of our family. Remember there is a long road trip coming up in March! I’ll have lots of stories to tell then .

Proud of My Girls

I am so proud of my girls. Each of them spent their own money, that they had earned, to buy each other gifts this Christmas. They spent almost all they saved  to buy these gifts. And it was their idea! It’s times like these that give me hope that I am not totally ruining them. Giving hearts were not only my girls gift to each other, but to me also .

Montezuma’s Well

We have a new RV! I will post pics of it in another post. But for now we took our maiden voyage in it. This trip we decided, on one of the days, to visit Montezuma’s Well.

The girls are really starting to enjoy these educational trips. They ask questions, read the plaques, and explore. They are now truly interested for themselves. It is no longer us trying to excite them about the history or significance of a certain place.

Here are some pics:

In March we are going to go on our longest RV trip yet. We will be visiting the fine States of California and Oregon. We plan on being gone for 2 months! We’re take a break from our normal History and Science curriculum and instead we’ll be learning it through the  many different places we visit, on the road. The girls are going to learn sooo much. We are all very EXCITED!!! 

My Little Sweety Bird

Here S is playing like he is a “little baby bird”. He went and got his sister’s hamper lid and made it his nest. He pretended he was a new baby bird that had not yet learned to fly. So when he would try he would fall to the ground. This was the day after watching the Planet Earth dvd where the baby ducks fall from their nest in the tree. He was falling and “bouncing” just as they did .

“Next Year’s” Plan

Since we do school year around our new “school year” will begin in January. I am becoming more and more eclectic in my curriculum choices. I am very draw to Charlotte Mason and Classical ideas. Next years plan is like this:

For our family subjects

History & Geography–

The Story of the World Vol. 1 by Susan Wise Bauer w/ some of the activity guide

The books we will use along with this are these from Sonlight’s Core 1 :

The Usborne book of World History

The Usborne Time Traveler

Archaeologist Dig for Clues

The Great Wall of China

(And some library books thrown in.)

Science– All of SL Science 1 ( I might stretch this into 2 years), and Nature Journals

Read-alouds– (from SL Core 1)

Charlotte’s Web

Henry Huggins

The Wheels on the School

The Year of Miss Agnes

Homer Price

Greek Myths for Young Children

Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Mountain Born

Understood Betsy

Detectives in Togas

A Grain of Rice (Core K)

(I might stick to these. I might choose others at times. This is just a rough idea of what we’ll be reading.)

Poetry– (read from once a week & memorize one a month)

When We Were Very Young

Favorite Poems of Childhood

Composers– (listen to in the car at least once a week, and discuss)

Strauss

Vivaldi

Beethoven

Handel

Rossini

Picture Study– (once a week)

Mary Cassatt

Monet

Van Gogh

Homer

Da Vinci

Bible– (during breakfast)

Read one week from the O.T. The next week from the N.T.

The Scripture Memory System from SCM

http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/ 

with their list of Scriptures

 http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/verseslist/

Singing/Drama-

Choral Group

Spanish– (once or twice a week)

Rosetta Stone & Teach Them Spanish workbooks

Literature– books that they will both read separately (connected to our history study)

Tut’s Mummy Lost & Found

Pompeii : Buried Alive

The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth

Fa Mulan: the Story of a Woman Warrior 

Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures: Ancient Egypt

P’s Core Subjects

Math– Math-u-see (Beta), & math games

English-Rod & Staff English 3

Copywork/Spelling- Simply Spelling

Cursive– A Reason For Handwriting C

Literature– (look above and whatever else they wish to read from the library or home .)

Handy Craft– crocheting

R’s Core Subjects

Math– Math-u-see (Alpha), & math games

Copywork/Handwriting– Draw Write Now

Phonics/English– finish Phonics Pathways, then start Language Smarts Level B ( Critical Thinking Co.)

Literature– (look above, and whatever else they wish to read from the library or home )

Handy Craft– loop and loom weaving

I used SCM’s “Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education”

http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/planning-your-charlotte-mason-education/ to plan this all out. I think it is going to be a great “year”.

“Simply Spelling”- Will this be it?

Ok so my idea of using P’s creative writing stories as a place to get her spelling list from, was a flop. Sometimes I would pick words that turned out to be just plain too hard for her. So she still does a cw story ever so often, but I do not use it for spelling purposes. I tried Rod & Staff’s 2^nd grade spelling (since we love their English), for a few weeks. P found it to be too easy, and boring. I finally decided that I don’t like spelling LISTS! So after much searching; I found this book that uses the copywork/dictation method for spelling:

http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=1490908

P copies  the  selection 3–4 days a week (along with the assignments and recommendation in the book for each day),then on the 4^th or 5^th day I dictate the passage to her. We have used it for 6 weeks now and P hasn’t gotten a single word wrong! Plus she is getting all the capitalization, and punctuation (including commas) correct! She likes doing things this way because it combines her copywork and spelling into one, making less work for her (and me). It is building her confidence in spelling since there are always words that she knows along with the words she doesn’t. Seeing the words in context of writing also helps a lot. Now, I am not going to say we will do things this way forever, but for now it’s working. However, we’ll see what happens over the next few weeks  .

Christmas in October

My girls love to throw parties in the evenings for the family. They plan during the day, set their room up,  & send out invitations. Then after dinner we have a party! P found this invitation on the Crayola web sight, which gave her the idea for a Christmas party:

( the RSVP is a fake #)

P printed this off the Crayola sight also, and came up with the game “pin the ornaments on the Christmas tree”:

R made a Christmas tree & angel, and they both set this little scene up:

They sang one of the songs that they are learning in Choral group for the Christmas production; including their duet of “Away in a Manger” (there is something about siblings singing together ). R read the Christmas Story to us. They ended the evening by putting on a Christmas puppet show. We had a jolly good time!

There was a discussion on a homeschool forum this week about Charlotte Mason’s dislike of unit studies. It got me thinking. Unit studies can be great fun for the teacher (finding ways to connect all the subjects into one core topic, yippee!). Children do tend to have fun doing things this way also. However, is fun the objective or is real learning the objective? When I see my girls get their own ideas and implement them, without any interference from me; I can’t help but think that it is better for them to make the connections themselves. They are putting their thoughts, their passion into the topic. They are doing all the work, and planning. They are not simply along for the ride. I’m not taking them step by step, project by project connecting all the dots for them. There is nothing wrong with projects or connecting subjects as long as it’s not forced and makes sense, or is just for fun. I think I’ll be focusing more on stimulating the ideas, and let them grow those ideas in their own play and creativity. No more silly projects that are nothing more than busy work here.

I know that the girls did not get this party idea form something we were studying. However, they often do come up with amazingly creative ideas from things we’ve studied. This party just reminded me of some of them. See how our minds are always making connections . 

School Room?

 I don’t really have a school room. I do have a school area though. Here are some pictures of where some of the learning happens at our house:

My Desk:

Girl’s Desk:

And art area:

“Current books we’re working on” book shelf:

The girls work station:

(R’s)

(P’s)

Our library in the foyer:

So there you have it, our “school”. But really the world is our class room!