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.

It's been a while...Biding Time

I'm all about "what's next". It started around my 4th Birthday, I was starting to get a grasp of past/present/future concepts and I realized, the future is AWESOME! The future is full of possibilities! I don't mind growing up (yes, I am not growing older- I am just growing up!), I like it. Yup that 4th Birthday - I have a good memory- I started dreaming about my 5th. And then my 6th...7th...It went on for... Oh, well over 20 years and counting.

I like making plans. Sure, pretty much my entire life has been disappointing at points, my adolescence was full of disappointments. The magic of childhood died, the warm fuzzy moments harder to find.But to the future I looked- the future will be better, the future can be ANYTHING. Some times I dream kind of TOO big. It has been a process of having BIG dreams but learning to take reasonable launching points in the process of getting there.

Unrelated picture of my sweet children.

And I do like baby steps. No really, I will write these To Do checklists most days and I will write down things like "brush teeth" or "change baby's diaper" - I have to do it, I might already have finished doing it (for that time), but I get a little thrill of checking things off.


This summer has been full of pages and pages of check lists. We are preparing to move, and remodelling the house we are moving into- and it is just severely awful the amount that has needed doing. But I have been having so much fun doing it!

But while I'm digging through all the painting, de-wall papering, re-tiling, replacing, painting, putting furniture together, laying laminate flooring, painting (I have painted A LOT), and caring for 3 small children day in and day out. The though keeps coming to my mind "Oh I wish I could do __________"

I wish I had time to devote to music. It would be so fun.
I wish I could devote that time and grow in skill so I could start teaching- that would be so fun!
I wish I could get really into fiber/yarn/knit work so that I was so amazing I could design my own patterns and make amazing creations (I may or may not have been browsing a pattern book). That would be so fun!
I wish I could take some courses and become a postpartum doula.
 I wish the hubby and I could go do that together...I wish we could finish a sentence with out 3 interuptions. I wish we got more sleep..Wait getting off subject here.

Some times being future oriented sucks. There are so many things I'd love to do. But here I sit snuggling and chasing and feeding (over and over and over again).

 I don't really have time for any thing but the day to day. I am almost done with the renovations and then we will be moving (well once the contractors do their thing). But then we will start home schooling (Roo girl starts 1st grade with Heart of Dakota and Friendly will be doing their preschool/kindy curriculum).

I have devoted the last 5.5 years (and counting) to mothering, nursing (which - at least with my babies has felt like quite a job), and trying to just focus on my family and this season of life. And this summer with all of the projects and busyness - well that hasn't changed any thing. It's made me realize even more strongly that this season is for my kids. I have been trying to figure out where the balance is though. Now that my youngest is getting past the baby "must have mama all the time" stage I have a bit more freedom. There are so many things on my "to do lists" and I have been trying to weed through what I can try to nibble away at while staying present.

How do I keep my priorities on my family...While still chipping away at things that interest me?

Just some things rolling around in my head the past few weeks.

How do I balance...And how in the world will there ever be enough hours in the day?

Oh painting...another fun thing I'd like to do more!

Eyes to See...You have ARRIVED!

Whenever I write a blog post I feel like I need to write some sort of "I hope I don't sound presumptuous- I'm 5 years in to this gig...This is coming from a heart that is learning...I don't claim to have any special..hmmm...Well, any thing. I write to process...And I've come up for air, so hang on!! Also, my spell check is UK English, so if some thing is spelled wrong- ha!"


It's been a very busy and full few months. We haven't gone anywhere much, or done any thing special. And yet it's felt so very busy. Most of that has been inside my head. I'm an internal processor and when I'm learning a lot, or feeling stretched, I climb inside my brain and baten down the hatch.

Which makes me think of a submarine or a bomb shelter...Let's stick with submarine. Some times I feel like I am going through life as a

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.