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!

Finding Balance in Flux

Flux

noun

1. a flowing or flow.

2. the flowing in of the tide.

3. continuous change, passage, or movement:

 I'm the kind of person that loves structure, until it feels like a burden and then I need change.

Right now life is very...loose. It's been interesting since Ziggy was born. Life has revolved around his sleep and how much sleep I am getting, and how can I get the most sleep possible?

Add to the fact that Hubby Joy sets his own hours and works all hours, some days he starts work at 7 and works all day without breaks until dinner time. He picks it back up after the older three are in bed. Other mornings we sleep in until 8 or 8:30 and he doesn't start work until between 9 and 10 works until 5 or 6 and our day (the kids and mine) works around that.

Working Late, Ziggy was helping...

Some nights he's up until 2 or 3 in the morning trying to figure out a problem in the project before the people on the other end need it the next morning.  So he sleeps past 9 or 10 and I get up and feed the  kids and start the day with out him.

His work load and deadlines change daily. Some weeks he works 6 days a week some weeks he takes more time off.

And then sleep. Any opportunity I have to get more of it I feel like I should take it, because if there is any thing in my life I'm consistently short on, it's sleep. Ziggy is a decent sleeper, for a baby he's fantastic, I put him down between 8 and 10 p.m. and he often will sleep 5-6 hours at a time. Some times he doesn't wake me until 5a.m. (7-8 hour stretches) and then he nurses for a long time while we doze. After three rough sleepers, he's a dream and it is working for us. But Friendly has been having a horrid patch again (sensory struggles mostly, upset and needing help) and she wakes me (and has for months) several nights a week and then I struggle to get back to sleep myself. So when the baby sleeps in until 7:30-8 (or some times later) I have a hard time saying no to the opportunity.

So I wonder? Is this the season I am in, and I need to just do what works and go from there? Or do I need to be the river bed for the family flow and set the foundation by being intentional and getting up earlier? The older 3 wake up between 6-7a.m., get some food (we fondly refer to it as "First Breakfast"), and work on projects until I come down.

When I come down Hubby makes the coffee and we work on getting a real breakfast on the table, we eat as a family and then the kids go off and do more projects while DH and I finish up our coffee and I do chores and he heads up to the office.

By the time I'm done breakfast and chores it's 9:30 and the baby is ready to nurse, he usually doesn't nurse long when he wakes up and so we snuggle for 30 minutes at this time. And then he plays happily and I get my shower and we head out the door to meet friends, or we do some thing else together until lunch time. I suppose this would be prime school time.

Do I try to make things flow or do I embrace the flux, the ever changing needs?

I'm torn. Because I know that in some ways our days are more productive when I'm up at before 7. On the flip side I am exhausted and stressed and long-term, unhappy in that scenario.

Here's what's working:

Slow mornings. After years of rushing through parts of our morning, either for Hubby Joy to get off to work or to welcome our Bonus Kiddo the year we  had her with us, well I didn't realize how stressed it left me feeling until we were free of it. A slow morning routine helps the rest of the day feel calm.

What does a slow morning mean?
Sleeping in isn't so much the issue, it's being able to wake up slowly. Hubby Joy and I take that time to talk for a few minutes while Ziggy crawls between us and snuggles.
 We need that connection time before we start our day surrounded by the kids.
I also need time to drink my coffee alone. I like to sit on the porch and read with my coffee. This isn't really possible with busy Ziggy, but I do still like to sit and enjoy nobody touching me or climbing on me. The kids know I won't read to them or do any thing with them until my cup is empty.

So what I think we'll do...
That said, I do think I need to set the alarm for 7:30 and be out of bed no later than 8 on week days, bad nights will happen but I don't think that will be a burden. I need to hop right into the shower.

We should shoot to be done with breakfast by 9.

Then coffee time.

Then FAMILY chores. That will be a change. The girls will unload and load the dishwasher if I ask them to help me. I think I would like them to be more involved in the daily running of the house. It's a fine line we are not sure how to balance. We don't want to raise entitled children, we want them to have life skills and understand the value of work, and just all that it takes to keep a house and family running. But we also want them to be *kids*, we want them to have this time to be young, to know a carefree childhood where housework and chores were some thing they did along side of us...Not some burden that they alone carried for the family and they were sent off and expected to do it no matter how miserable and nasty everyone was being (as children from larger families we may have a bit of baggage here...).

So I think involving them in housework will need to happen here. We have talked about every body having a day to unload the dishwasher (HJ and I included), make it a team effort to keep up with that sort of thing. I need to come up with a chart for that.  And have the expectation that I will have kids in my bubble and needing supervision and my involvement in the mornings.

And then after chores will be Pip's school time.

We'll be using Heart of Dakota, so I will do her Bible and Language Arts and a chapter (Life of Fred) of Math with her. Or maybe I will get Horizons Kindergarten for her and do a page every day it's assigned, I really want less reading aloud in my life...Or maybe we will skip math this year. We will be doing 2 years of Kindergarten unless she just takes off with reading. I don't really believe in pushing math before the age of 9 anyway...I don't really believe in pushing much of any thing before age 9, unless the child is interested, but there's the rub, she's interested. I think she'll really enjoy her "Mommy Date" every morning getting to do a cozy literature-based curriculum all her own, and math pages especially will interest her, she loves numbers. As a younger sibling from a homeschool family I know how much it means to DO SCHOOL with Mommy. Is it necessary? No. But any thing I can do to connect with this kiddo is worth it.

After  Pip's school time her assignment will be 5 books in the Skybrary and then 20 minutes of Teach Your Monster to Read if she wants it. Other wise it will be anything we allow from PBS Kids.

That leaves the older kids school time: We will start with Brain Integration Therapy and move to Phonics practice (Friendly) and The Main Assignments for the day from Build Your Own Library guide.

All that said and done we should be done with school by noon. With homework and left over assignments to be finished after lunch and on pleasant days we can head to the park for more read alouds and cold day we can schedule in some tea times too.

I have been hearing a lot about Bravewriter poetry and tea and I want to look into that for enrichment, I think Friendly would love it.

I think regardless this is going to be a lot of work and constant need for grace and being realistic. Some days we'll get a lot done, other days maybe we won't. But I think, even if it's not the best way to do it, I think this will be our best happy medium.

Next post, week days...Thinking through how I want to do our week. I do think a rhythm here would be good.

Monday Library Day...Tuesday Baking day...Wednesday Park day.. or some thing like that. I think those sorts of rhythms ground us. More on that and with the finished chore chart next time.

Wrapping My Head Around the Coming Year...

It's hitting me that July is almost over, that we only have a month or so of summer weather left. I went out to the garden this afternoon and despite my dismal efforts we have vegetables growing all over the place. It's been a very busy season, summer means hours at the park and pool and any moment I'm home is either me crashing in exhaustion or rushing trying to clean up from the kids that have trashed the house while I was resting from the hours of carrying/chasing/watching busy baby in the summer heat.

A Mermaid Castle the kids built in a creek.

It's been a really fun summer though...We've squeezed in a beach trip, fire works watching, many picnics, and tons of pool time. We also spent a lot of time at the library. Everyone took part in our local Summer Reading Program and the ones that could take part logged well over 2,000 minutes reading. I'm especially blown away by Roo, she logged so many books and reading time, all the prizes she won got to be a little obnoxious.

But August is around the corner, Friendly turns seven in 9 days. We're starting to make Birthday plans. And with that my mind starts to turn to our school  year and wondering if I'm covering all the things well enough.

Breakdown

Core Spine: Build Your Library: The Medieval World technically this is "Grade 2" I think it will be a perfect middle ground for Friendly who falls some where between 1st and 2nd grade and Roo who falls some where between 2nd and 3rd. 

What we will be covering (and some of the books we will use):
History
Story of the World Volume 2

Language Arts will be intertwined with history, we'll be reading about Medieval times and The Middle Ages from the Build Your Library Book Store (and supplementing whenever possible with Library Audio options, When researching for the year I was excited to find that our local Library has several of the required books available as Audio Books- less reading aloud for me.)

Science
We'll be using BYOL's Science doing Earth Science and a Study of Space
I'm feeling a little ridiculously excited to get started. Last year when  we did the Ancient Civilizations the Science study was Nature studies (and nature notebooking) I wanted to study it so badly. I did some of the activities myself because I felt like making the observations, some times the kids would join me but generally it was a "oh That's nice, Mom.". Roo wanted to study Physiology and Anatomy, good stuff We used Apologia's program and Jr. Notebooking Journal  which is fantastic. But I don't know, maybe because it wasn't technically in the Teacher's Guide or maybe I just found it hard to squeeze in because there was so much to it, but I had a hard time consistently offering opportunities to work on it- or knowing how much to do. It was fine, the kids enjoyed it we got a few chapters of the book done and will pick it back up as interest dictates.

Okay so Science is covered.

Grammar and Spelling
The BYOL also offers opportunities to do dictation (so technically grammar, spelling, and handwriting if you want it to be). This format (using dictation from language arts that day) hasn't worked well with Roo. I think it feels too vague and unofficial for her. So we were using Spelling You See Jack & Jill I'm unsure whether she is ready to move on to the next level. Her reading comprehension and skills have jumped several grade levels in the last 3 months alone. When we started Jack and Jill last school year it was a bit too much for her. Now the spelling words are beyond easy for her, but it gives lots of practice in grammar as well as some handwriting practice. We've been skipping and doing a 5 or 6 grammar exercises in one day and 1 spelling practice and then moving on. We jumped ahead at least 10 levels in 2 weeks that way...We could quickly finish up and move on I suppose. I'm just unsure if that would be the best use of the curriculum? We can erase and use it again for Friendly, perhaps.
Which leads me to Friendly, I'm not sure if Spelling You See is the best fit for Friendly though. Due to her Auditory Processing challenges she gets really frustrated and turned around when she has to spell words from hearing me say them. She does better with concrete pictures and building the word visually. I thought about maybe going back to Explode the Code with her (we used it briefly with Roo in pre-K age, haven't used it with Roo). But I feel so in over my head in where to place her. I think we will be leaving spelling alone for now and using the Brain Integration Therapy exercises and phonic sounds flash cards to unlock her blocked learning gates and then re-evaluate at mid-year.

Math
We've really been enjoying and learning a lot from Life of Fred  And the kids have picked up a ton of math from it! I think we're going to stick with that until we get through Edgewood and then see where the kids land. I have been really leaning towards wanting to do Teaching Textbooks with Roo, but I think I'd rather save the money and reconsider at mid-year as well. I go back and forth on this. The only thing I don't like about Life of Fred is that it's more reading out loud. It's not that I dislike reading out loud, but when you have little ones reading out loud means interruptions, constant interruptions. And that's part of life and it's part of homeschooling and it's part of reality but it annoys the heck out of me. :D I have been trying to work through scheduling stuff to reduce interruptions, but infants are infants, preschoolers are preschoolers and they are to interruption what bees are to nectar. I did begin recording myself reading chapters aloud on a private youtube channel so I can set kids up with a chapter on the ipad....

So Did I cover every thing?

Oh Bible. 

I will be doing Heart of Dakota Little Hearts for His Glory again (did it with Roo in 2013) with Pip, that has daily Bible stories and Memory verses. I think we will also be using Our 24 Family Ways every morning, or some mornings at least.

Sheesh when I type it all out I feel super overwhelmed! But then I remember, It's not all these things every day (except for Brain Integration Therapy, that's 15minutes daily). We're definitely going to have to think through a morning flow that works better than what we currently have. One that doesn't make homeschooling feel like a chain weighting down the relaxed days we want to have. But some thing that insures we're getting things done and every thing feels like they have enough structure to thrive and accomplish what they want to.

There's the rub.

More on that next time.