Rolling Along...6 weeks.

First Day of School Ziggy wasn't so sure about this school Business...It just means Mama and sisters are distracted from playing with him!

Last week wrapped up our 6th week of school! I've decided to make every 6th week an "easy" week, we don't do History, we do a fun audio book for language arts, and we take it easy.

We're trucking along with Brain Integration Therapy exercises I'm struggling with these, it's really hard to balance the fact that "if we're going to do this, we need to do it right!" and "we're just going to do the best we can and hopefully any thing we do is benefitting and helping to integrate and resolve midline issues."

The positive is that dd1 is doing her computer-based vision therapy every day.  The writing 8 exercises have improved their handwriting and are resolving reversals and issues they have in that regard.

It's just hard to balance my desire to be delight-driven in our school days, and our need to make progress and give them the best foot forward educationally. It has been really challenging and a bit intimidating.

Where have we landed?

Each year I go in with lots of big ideas and then life happens and things get sifted down to reality.  I end up finding a sweet spot of what is enjoyable and working, and what is not.

Reality...

Roo is completing her vision therapy, BIT exercises, A section of History and Timeline work, Two Miqon Math lab sheets, and alternate days of Science reading and a Journal page (a paragraph and optional illustration) daily. This is not with out some complaints and whining. I've come up with a reward situation where she gets 30 minutes of coveted time playing with a friend (it's an online server and she emails her friend to set up a time, yay for practice writing, spelling, online safety and communication- learning on several levels!) on a Star Stables game if she gets every thing done with a positive (or at least neutral) attitude.

So far that is working well. She also whips through books like nobodies business, she's reading 4-5 chapter books a month at this point, I can't say what a joy it is to see her taking off with reading. I also can't believe how reading has improved her spelling skills! She has jumped from phonetic spelling to rarely misspelling words in the last month. Again, I'm thrilled...It means so much, 3 years into this homeschooling thing to finally be seeing that she's getting it! And older homeschool Mom told me that usually homeschooled kids will often be behind grade level until 3rd or 4th grade and then ZIP they get it and jump well ahead of their peers on almost every  level, I am starting to see the truth in this statement. Not that I care if the kids are academically ahead, I just want them to enjoy learning, but it is rewarding to see I'm not stunting them by keeping them home, ya know? I was wondering there for a while...It's been quite a journey of faith.

Ziggy gets in on Miqon Math Labs too!

Friendly.. Friendly really enjoys school, most days we don't have a bit of trouble with her attitude. The only problem is when it takes longer to get to actually doing school because the baby is having a rough day. She completes her BIT exercises, a page of reading out loud (to me), two Miquon Math lab sheets,  and a journal writing page daily. She also listens to History and completes the timeline work and other assignments along side Roo. She is passionate writer and very interested in literature. She spends much of her days outside with her kindle listening to audio books or playing with Pip. 

 Pip...
I had lofty goals with Pip when we went into the school year, but it's landed where it always does...Enjoying reading things together and busy work. She's really a lot more academically focused than her sisters were at this age, and it's been a lot of fun to see her work at things. I bought her a bunch of these amazing busy books at the start of the school year and she just whips through at least 4 pages a day, she loves cutting and pasting and problem solving. We've been enjoying a daily chapter of Milly Molly Mandy together and a Bible story from this curriculum  (it has a coloring book to work on as well), it's been really quite perfect..Depending on the Bible story I'll throw in some Heart of Dakota finger play as well- she really just didn't like the stories from Heart of Dakota and it's not like she's my only student- there's too much going on to try to push through any thing she's not loving! I love the Finger plays though and the Bible Memory songs so it isn't all a waste. :D

Ziggy...
He's 1, enough said. Oh my goodness! Some days are awful. He's climbing every thing, into every thing, and often melting down because I'm not playing with him. Some days are awesome though, he's happy to play with whatever sibling isn't doing school, he enjoys watching Sesame Street with Pip...He discovered how crayons, markers, and pens work and we've taken to laying down big pieces of paper for him to scribble on...

He really is very much a little scientist and loves to try to figure stuff out, he will sit for quite some time just studying some thing, he spent a good 10 minutes (an eternity for a 1 year old) trying to get this hole punch tool to work on his paper.

 He also loves to take part in the BIT exercises, he finds his spot and does his lunges like his big sisters! :)

 And His Magic Yellow Stroller, it's so funny how different every baby has been!!! This little ones loves his stroller, it is many days the only way I get any sort of nap out of him at all. He prefers to nap in the middle of it all, he doesn't want to miss a thing and he seems to sleep best with a lot of noise in the background, some thing his sisters are happy to supply!

He fell asleep during read aloud time!

The rest of school has been outside, frankly I'm feeling a bit exhausted from all the Going we've been enjoying. We bough a pass to a local zoo and we've been taking advantage of a gorgeous and warm autumn, spending several days a week at parks and playgrounds. And Hubby Joy's work schedule has been crazy, so some times when he doesn't have a pressing deadline he takes a weekday morning off and joins us a the park.

Lots of sunshine and fun at home and around..

Pip teaching Ziggy how to use a shovel to put mulch in a bucket, he got it right away and has been filing buckets with dirt and mulch ever since! Homeschooling, starts at birth- they learn so much from their siblings!

Some Pip and Mama snuggles, she is growing so much my little snuggle bug is outgrowing my lap. :(

playing in the garden, it turned into a jungle but they don't mind!

An afternoon picnic reading our language arts assignments at the park bring back so many happy memories for me!

Visiting a replica of a Teepee at the the local Native American grounds near our home.

It's been a good school year so far, onwards towards The Holidays!

Autumn to December- what a rush!

self portrait by Friendly (aged 4)

 It's been a while! Our school year is going well... Friendly is just blowing my mind with her hungry little intellectual brain. And Roo is growing in leaps and bounds and asking such thoughtful and deep questions I am some times at a loss how to answer her (youtube to the rescue lol...well at least it answers "how are cars made?" But things like "why did Eve eat the fruit?" well geee...ummm)...

The girls can't get enough "school", it's a new kind of exhausting- but also a ton of fun!

I am still mostly loving a lot about Heart of Dakota curriculum. I love how short and sweet it is! We can do it "all" in 20 minutes, or we can stretch it out and take 3 hours and just soak in all the stuff.  It is very underwhelming and a great spring board for these ages- I definitely am glad I went with it this year. It has given us lots of time to spend outside during the sunshiney days of October and November....Lots of sweet moments:

Pip's favorite thing, ever: holding her sisters hands and being "big".

"The Heart of God" 100% by Roo

  We have been pretty much moseying through units 12/13 since Thanksgiving- skipping a lot of days to rest, run errands, work on house projects (more on that on the family blog shortly!) or just do other stuff.

At Thanksgiving we attempted finger print turkeys:

 What we actually ended up doing for the official was letting the girls finger paint a chinet plate and then we traced the girls hands on to it the next day and they added turkey features to their "hands".

 It has also been snowing a shocking amount for this time of year. We built a snow man together last weekend:

 Her name is (Roo declared): Miss "Lady"

 

In school this year so far we've covered The Old Testament from Creation up through the New Testament where we've just started in on Jesus' Ministry and the recounting of Jesus turning water into wine.

We finished "The World God Made" Kindergarten science book and have moved onto "Our Father's World" first grade science. Both are creation science books (covering the days of creation, the elements, animals, human anatomy, weather, seasons, months etc)...We're almost done the first grade book and I'm really not sure what to move onto next. Honestly all the Charlotte Mason-ish curriculum I have seen are not that big on science- and its' some thing that is a ton of fun to study together. I think researching new options is going to be my goal for Christmas Break.

What else have we done? We have followed the story of Reddy the Fox, Peter Cotton Tail, and are now in our 3rd book "Danny Meadow Mouse" - the girls are loving the books but Thorton Burgess and I love how bite sized they are and how HOD hones in on themes and draws out activities from the chapters.

So 4 months in, what do I still think of Heart of Dakota? I like it. Will I use it next year? I am not sure. I think it actually works really well for Roo (nearly 6). But I feel like I almost need some thing more driven and faster moving for Friendly (4). I am considering My Father's World Curriculum for her next year. We shall see.

 Another exciting thing (that has filled up many an afternoon!) was that Roo and Friendly got their *very own* library cards. It has been fun to take them on individual dates- cheap dates- and letting them walk out with a big stack of book they picked out themselves!

ADVENT....
We've been doing advent activities every day and are reading "The 24 Days of Christmas" by Madeline L'Engle

A tradition: paper chain!

wrapping paper, paper chain!

Tea times...

Decorating!

Glittery snow flake making (because nothing says "Christmas" like cleaning up glitter for the entire month!) Friendly took the initiative and taped her snowflake to the front door- isn't that great? Lots of tape too! :)

And typing out all that above and looking through the girls "binders" (we've been putting their projects and special papers in their own binder- the things are BURSTING they are so full of stuff they've written, created, and done in "school"). Well it feels good. Really good, I really like homeschooling. So much as a stay at home Mom I feel like I do a ton of things that get "undone" or that aren't really quantifiable...Some times it all feels pointless. I like check lists (though I try to be flexible), I like the reward of seeing I have accomplished some thing. And reading the above ...Well we have accomplished a lot this Autumn...It's been so much fun to learn and grow together.


I am hoping next year will bring more time to blog...to ponder and process. 2013 has been ridiculously amazingly busy and full of changes and blessings... Here's to a new year and more things to learn and grow in!

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the "Joy" Family (and Nana Joy too- oh and if you're wondering about our expressions- the person taking our picture their tree was falling over behind them- ha!)

Home Schooling

Our adventure has officially begun! The past few months have been wild! I renovated 3 large rooms this summer, helped lay a new patio, I was working at least 40+ hours a week for most of the month of July and a lot of August. It was a crazy summer. And then we moved! Lots of life changes happening. You can read more about our before and afters over at our family blog if you're into that sort of thing :)

The past...2 years... I have loosely followed some online guides (Wee Folk Art has some awesome unit studies and we enjoyed some of the fall and winter ones the last 2 years). A relative gave me her Sonlight Core A that she had used with her kids. So for the past two years we've chipped away at the read alouds and really enjoyed the Science books and the Usborn stuff that came with that (seriously, it is an awesome resource! I cannot say what a blessing it was to be able to use it!). But honestly, I am not big on pushing "school"... It just didn't feel like "it was time" and so we just did what we felt like when it felt right and it was fun.

 I liked a lot of the stuff in Sonlight and I was really hoping to use it "for real" when the time came. But the way the actual lesson plans were set up was a bit too intense for me. When I see a check list (or something that resembles it) I have a hard time NOT checking things off of it! So we never really dove in "whole hog". After all my kids are still really young (5, 4, and 1.5) and like I said, it didn't feel like it was time.

But for the last 9 months my kids have been BORED.  I have been bored. I have really struggled to come up with stuff to do with them.

So last spring I started researching curriculum options. I always thought I'd lean more to the "unschool not so formal" side of things. But it was not working for us any more.

I looked into Ambleside ...Easy Peasey All-in-One home school... I checked out Waldorf options...Five In A Row really appealed....Online options...I checked out local Charter Schools (as in, send the kids there to learn out of home options). I really prayed about this home schooling thing. Honestly, 3 small children 50+ hours a lone a week? For years on end? Am I CRAZY!?!? But I knew deep down it was what was best for Roo. She is an introvert. Being in a class day in and day out and away from home 10 hours a day. She would be stressed and miserable. And I really didn't want her spending so much of her childhood away from me- at least not when she's so small.

All last winter I researched all my options. And it was really overwhelming! Have you ever googled "home school curriculum"? Don't.

Options options options! Every thing required pulling stuff together yourself. Been there, done that, not my cup of tea! I lose focus too quickly. I get tired of trying to stick to some thing if it required leaving the house to gather and prepare. I needed some thing packaged. Some thing very "open and go". I came across Heart of Dakota and after a few months pouring over all the options I knew what we needed and dove in.  HOD is a really neat curriculum but digging through it all was overwhelming at first! The curriculum is structured but gives several options of what you can do with in the guide and it took me a lot of time to decide what the girls would do best with! But once you decide? Its' all RIGHT there, every thing you need to follow the weekly Unit Studies...

All of our curriculum on one small shelf! Our read alouds, phonics, math, science, Bible, History, Hand writing and Teachers guide for two "students"!

We're heading into our 4th week of officially home schooling, and I LOVE it. I mean it! I am shocked to say that I am enjoying it. We get up every morning, eat breakfast, get dressed, do our chores and then head down to the school table to do our school for the day.

 I open up our teachers guide (it looks like THIS), I hand the girls scissors, paper, glue and crayons and ask them to make some thing- whatever they want! Some days I have a planned activity and they work on that with little help from me (it may not turn out exactly how I had explained but its' about process not product.)...While they work I look at our first box of the day (usually Bible and History) and I read aloud and they listen with busy hands and ask questions while I read. Then we do our read aloud for the morning and the activity that follows (writing a letter to Reddy Fox, drawing a picture of some thing that happened in the story that day, acting out a new word and what it means).

For history we draw a picture in our Book of Time (time line binder) and we look at how the story of time is unfolding from creation to present (we are at King David right now).  After History we do Science. We do a Science experiment a few days a week and we have been going on Nature hikes and studying trees, bark, shrubs, and leaves. After Science we do our math lesson (we are using Rod and Staff Arithmetic Grade 1 for Roo, and Friendly is following along and doing busy work pages from a Spectrum Kindergarten work book as she likes...We also do a lot of tannegrams and hands on manipulatives exploring math concepts).

For Phonics we are working through "The Reading Lesson" which Roo is really enjoying.

School can be done in 30 minutes but generally it eats up our entire morning which is WONDERFUL!!! The baby likes school too. She knows the minute her sisters are set up with a craft she gets to snuggle and nurse while I do our read alouds. She enjoys the science experiments and scribbling on her dry erase ABC board or coloring on the chalk board.

I am really enjoying this adventure! And it helps to know I CHOOSE it. I am not doing this because I don't have any other options...There might be "easier" options, but this is what I chose.  I can make different choices whenever I like. But right now, this is right for us...And knowing that and having that is really precious.

Struggles...Are my Ally.

This month has been rough. About two weeks ago Hubby and Friendly both came down with the flu. Thankfully, Friendly's case wasn't too bad. She had a high fever (103+) for 3 days and a cough, was miserable but kept comfortable with Motrin. Hubby on the other hand was laid flat; high fever, horrible cough, and knocked out hard core for several days.
 Which left me solo parenting, dealing with a sleepless and teething baby, and praying I wouldn't get the flu too.

I didn't get it (wohoo!) But I came down with some thing else this weekend (sinus infection? virus? I'm still trying to decide). I am not nearly as miserable, but enough to be laid up on yesterday for the Pip Squeaks first Birthday.

Being sick, has also given me time to think- a luxury I haven't had in weeks.

What was I thinking about?

BALANCE

 Mostly how unfair it feels to me. Finding balance is such a struggle!
Sleep deprivation is super hard on any body...But especially mine...I try to brush it off...Soldier on, but it sucks. Add to it long standing autoimmune issues, anxiety and SAD and it has been an uphill battle for me this past month.

I read some thing a friend shared the other day that really impacted me.