Reading Lessons With Phil.

Okay, so today I thought it might be helpful and fun if we built a little Lego car and said each letter as we drove past. It degenerated quickly.

This is exhausting.

Side note: His exposure to Mark Rober's videos is obvious. He read the word "Mass" and I asked him what it meant, to be sure he knew what he was reading. I thought he might refer to Holy Mass at church.

His response? "Mass! Like center of mass? Your butt is your center of mass," and then proceeded to demonstrate what happens when your center of mass isn't centered. There was a lot of falling involved.

6 years old.

Oh, but I do love this boy. 

Flying Lessons.

After flying practice, they worked on a little telekinesis...

PatchWorks

In May we had the opportunity to attend a free educational performance about life in the early immigrant coal-mining communities in central Pennsylvania.  Three young, energetic performers, using minimal props, perform shows to educate local kids about our coal-mining heritage.  Sign me up! 

We got there early enough to get ringside seats, and the girls enthusiastically responded when the actors called for volunteers.  The skit was an ilustration of the endless ring of daily chores that the coal miners' wives and daughters had to perform.

The actors did a quick run-through of what each volunteer would have to do.  Monday was wash day; Tuesday was ironing, Wednesday was baking, Thursday was house-cleaning.  I forget Friday and Saturday, but Sunday was a day of rest. 

Theresa had baking day - she had to toss the dough in the air, catch it, and knead the bread. 

Natalie had house-cleaning.  She had to sweep the floor - ch-ch-ch. 

Noelle had Sunday, the day of rest.  When it came time for her to practice, she stood there like a dead fish with stage fright.  Totally froze.  Didn't know what to do to demonstrate a day of rest.  However, the show must go on, so the actors moved right along with the skit.

The rest of the volunteers did their parts perfectly.  Theresa kneaded the bread.  Natalie swept the floor.

Then came Sunday.  

Everyone in the room turned expectantly to Noelle.  She stood stock-still for a heart-stopping moment.  The room held its collective breath.  Would she freeze up?

Then she smiled, stretched her arms out in a leisurely yawn, and put her hands behind her head as if she were kicked back on a hammock, as the room erupted in laughter and applause!

Wintry Weather.

Not.

Here in Central Pennsylvania, the temperature is a brisk 74 degrees on December 4th.  The windows are open, we let the fire in the wood stove die out, and the kids are on the sunny porch, drawing Christmas pictures.   The irony is not lost on me.  I'm very thankful for this brief reprieve...the nasty weather is undoubtedly on its way.

Table is neat.  For the next 5 minutes, anyway.

October/November Stuff.

This year's Halloween costumes - which, incidentally, will probably be the last year they dress up for the "holiday" under our watch.  We are completely sick with how this holy day has been hijacked and satanized.  I only ever did it for the free candy, anyway.  Mini-rant over.

Natalie was an adorable and demure Mrs. Claus.

Clare, as zee French maid.

Ma belle Noelle.  Sort of a cross between a princess and Belle.

Regina was a clown, and Theresa was awesome as an ogre.  Her brothers dressed her up with tunic, green face, stout club.  It was great, but I didn't get pictures of either of them.  :(

Homeschooling.  Most days my school table is a sinkhole with no room for anything.  Um, guys?  The bookshelves are, like, three feet away.  

Another variation of the sinkhole, taken just moments ago.  They say a messy desk is a sign of creativity.  I hope a messy table is a sign of learning in progress. 

I can spy with my little eye several math worksheets, one vocabulary book, one grammar book, one reader, and one math workbook, plus a pile of stuff that has to be taken upstairs.  Oh, and THERE'S my purse.  Sigh.  I'll clean it off tomorrow.

I am perpetually cleaning off the school table, and refilling my poor, forgotten pencil apple.  

These kids think that pencils just magically appear there.

Here is a shot of a random school day.  Judging from the clothes, this must have been Halloween day.  Clare's doing math.

Noelle's playing with mosiac pieces, and Natalie's doing tangram puzzle cards.

Fun, but I also find cards and pieces on the floor for two days.

Brian, playing the Best. Logic. Game. Ever.

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis/

On to November.  I spent a scant few hours this evening preparing my living room for Advent.  I promised the kids I'd bring out/put up one decoration per day for each day of Advent, starting this Sunday.  That way our house will slowly be getting ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, just like we will be.  

But decorating my house always means cleaning and rearranging, since I have to make room for a Christmas tree in an already crowded room.  We moved two chairs and a couch, relocated a shoe organizer, raised a shelf, eliminated some toys, dusted, and vacuumed every square inch.  It's such a pleasant place now.  I hope it lasts for longer than just overnight.  :-/

The Christmas tree will be placed in front of the windows that face the street.

We don't have nice furniture, or even matching furniture.  The green couch is breaking.  The wood couch and chair have cushion covers that are fraying.  But it's all comfortable (enough), and I can't see the use of buying nice furniture now, while the kids are so destructive young.  This means you, Brian.

The mirrors are mostly clean, at least for a few minutes.  What on earth was that woman thinking, putting in floor-to-ceiling mirrors AND light blue carpet?????  And there's that beastly wood stove that keeps me up so many nights.

We enjoy sitting in front of the wood stove and look for shapes and figures in the dancing embers.  Kind of like a winter version of "that cloud looks like a ...."  Plus, that couch is the toastiest place to sleep in the whole world house.

It's such a good feeling, though, when it's all cleaned up and put away.  I love to rearrange furniture.  The seating/lighting setup is better now, and we all sat downstairs to pray night prayers, then played a game where two kids were "it" and sat in the middle of the floor, blindfolded, listening for footsteps and reaching their arms out around them.  The rest had to try to sneak past them without being touched, until everybody was caught, and then two different kids had to sit in the middle.  It was hilarious, nobody got hurt, and it lasted at least half an hour.

It's amazing how they'll run and play in a clean room, but do their darndest to junk it up again as soon as possible.  One of the Great Mysteries of Life.

Time For School With The Twins

I don't do a lot of formal schoolwork with the twins. What!? They're only five! To my way of thinking, playing IS their way of learning at this point. They can both read already, so they do a lot of reading. We play educational games. I answer every question they ask me. We cook and clean together. I direct them to educational websites. But we don't sit down very often with workbooks and such. Why not? THIS is why not.....

In case it may seem that they are only acting up for the camera, let me assure you that it was not so. The only difference between their behavior on and off camera was that they glanced over at me behind the camera, instead of me sitting between them at the table. They were every bit as giggly and ridiculously silly before the video, and after. I'm also homeschooling, and accountable for the educations of, an 11th grader, a 9th grader, a 6th grader and a 3rd grader. This takes up a significant portion of my day. Working with the twins takes up a lot of time and saps me of my will to live energy and enthusiasm. I usually need a glass of wine or a nap when I've had enough they are finished. On the other hand, they really are pretty darn cute. It's not so cute and funny when the 11th and 9th graders get that silly during lessons.

Why I Chose To Homeschool

In cleaning out our homeschool library, I finally found both pages of a list I made quite a few years ago.  I can't remember now exactly why I made this list.  I think it was because of something I read in a book - Catholic Homeschooling / A Patchwork of Days .  A sample of the book, including the table of contents, can be found here.

Anyway, the author recommended making a list of the reasons why you are homeschooling, and keeping it in a safe place so that you can whip it out when you just can't remember why you ever decided to do this in the first place.  I was probably close to that place when I made my list.  Upon reading it over, I can see now that several of them are not so much reasons to homeschool as they are benefits of homeschooling.  Whether you consider these good reasons or lame ones, valid or invalid, here's what I put down:

Why I Chose To Homeschool

- I love spending time with my children

- They were frequently bored in regular school

- We are not "morning people"

- We can study our own interests and pursue them as far as we want

- We don't have to stick to someone else's agenda for a curriculum

- Much time in regular school is taken up with busywork

- To shield my children from too many negative popular cultural influences and child cruelties "in the name of socialization"

- Because I am learning right alone with them and it's exciting to re-educate myself

- Because I love the "light bulb" moments and I doubt that it would go off as frequently in regular school, and I wouldn't be there to witness it

- It forces me to cultivate patience and become more organized

- I am learning how to understand my children and the way they think even better

- We as parents can be their principal role models longer than usual

- Side benefit - the children are more pleasant and get along better than ever

- We are all learning together alongside each other

- Side benefit - many great books are finding their way into our home

- It's counter-cultural!

A Day In The Homeschooling Life

I found a copy of this old journal tucked away in a photo album. I can't remember what prompted me to record this particular day in our lives. I think I did it to show somebody what our "perfect" family does every day. Pretty soon I'm should try to chronicle another unvarnished day in the life to remember what life in the looney bin is like these days. The family has changed so much since then.  I have to admit, though - the thought of chronicling the parallel activities of 10 people makes me cringe.

Ten years ago - wow!  This log centers on Tuesday, April 9, 2002, but I had to include Monday night for it to make sense.

The players: Dad, 34 years old, working day shift

Mom, 33 years old, sahm to 5 children, classical homeschooler, aspiring morning-person

Sarah, 11, night owl, softball player

Scott, 9, high strung, very helpful, first baseman

Brian, 5, resident Wrecking Ball, mischievous, plays tee-ball

Conor, 3, "Baby Chick," adorable, stubborn

Clare, 10 months, nursing addict

At this point in our lives we have been homeschooling for 3 years and Mom is still very energetic. Lots of art study, poetry, music, plus Latin. Housework was a very large challenge to us (who am I kidding - it still is), since homeschooling takes up a large part of our typical day and extracurricular activities take up the evenings.

Monday night

9:00 pm

Dad walked baby Clare to sleep while I read to Brian & Conor; said goodnight to the boys.

9:30

Goodnight to Sarah turned into 45-minute discussion about marriage, financial responsibility, checking accounts and credit cards (at 10:00 Brian came sneaking in).

10:15

Put Brian back in bed. I went to bed to read and to wake the sleeping baby enough to nurse her, since I was uncomfortably full because Dad walked her to sleep.

10:30, 10:40, 10:42, 10:50, 10:54, 10:58, 11:10

Brian gets out of bed because he “can’t sleep.”

11:15

Brian sneaks into my bed. I pretend to be asleep, hoping he’d go away. He wakes up the baby, then promptly falls asleep. Now the baby wants to play.

12:30 a.m.

I give up trying to nurse her back to sleep or keep her from waking Daddy, and take her downstairs. We eat Easter candy and I watch a movie while she is cute and content, crawling around, playing.

2:30 a.m.

I come back upstairs after the movie ends. Clare has passed out in my arms and I successfully lay her down without waking her.

3:30 a.m.

I finally fall asleep.

Tuesday morning

5:45 a.m.

My husband thinks he has some chance of waking me up at the time we had agreed upon, before all of last night’s nonsense began.

7:30

Revised alarm goes off – I ignore it until Scott comes in to shut it off. He crawls into my bed and snoozes it for an hour.

8:30

The alarm automatically shuts off after an hour, so we are able to go back to sleep without any further interruptions.

9:30

Brian comes in, then Conor. We wake slowly, scratching alphabet letters on each others’ backs, playing the ‘leg sweep’ game. Clare is happy jumping in the crib. Scott showers. Normally Clare would wake up before 8:00 a.m., nurse back to sleep, and stay asleep until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. Not today, though, with all the commotion.

10:05

With Clare still in the crib, I take a “self-preservation” shower. This means that if I don’t, I’m going to feel so grimy and oily that I’ll be miserable.

10:30

Sarah showers, I make notes for this log, Brian & Conor play cars, and Scott antagonizes them.

10:40

Dressed for the day – I attempted (unsuccessfully) to nurse the baby back to sleep while the kids went down to eat. They had cereal amid much strife – fighting over bowls and spoons, who was hogging the cereal, passing the milk, etc. Again, Scott is the source of it.

10:55

Scott begins math (on his own), Brian & Conor (henceforth B&C) play with Bug’s Life figures, and Clare motors around on the floor looking for choking hazards.

11:05

Phone rings. Sarah fouls up computer boot-up (back in the dial-up days) and the phone call is cut short by the modem screeching in our ears. I yell at Sarah for thinking she knows everything, then yell at B&C to clean up the three messes they’ve made so far. Baby is crawling up my leg (she did manage to find a jellybean a few minutes ago). Scott is TRYING to concentrate on math. I still haven’t eaten or dried my hair. PS – I hate it when my mother calls during school hours.

11:15

I decide on cheese melted on tortillas, and canned pineapple. The baby crawled around the kitchen floor crying after me the whole time I was preparing my “breakfast.” Scott finally gave up on math and took pity on her and held her on his lap until I could sit down to eat. Brian is playing computer; Conor is around here somewhere but quiet (I better go take a look), and I think Sarah is sulking because I yelled at her.

11:22

Sar wasn’t sulking; she was reading about sharks. I’m feeding the baby prunes while I eat and write this. No school being done at the moment.

Sink – full of dishes.

Table – full of crumbs from last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast.

Couch – loaded with 5 batches of clean laundry in various stages of foldedness

11:27

Sarah gets her math book. B&C doing puzzles. I don’t even want to look at the floor in there.

11:34

Brian dashes in to grab his kindergarten math book, which requires my full attention. 3 kids doing math at once – not good. They all distract each other. Oh no – now Conor is running in clamoring for his “piggy” book (a preschool math workbook with pigs on the cover). Oh, boy…

P.S. Clare doesn’t like pineapple.

P.P.S. Scott went in to finish the puzzles.

11:42

THREE RING MATH CIRCUS. At least I’ve eaten and I’m feeling human again. Scott isn’t back yet from the puzzles.

11:47

Scott’s back. Conor is on the counter. Brian is doing quite well solo in his math book. I take back what I said before – he can work alone sometimes.

11:50

Doorbell rings – kids adjourn to see their homeschooled friend Casey for a minute.

12:08

A minute turns into 20 while they show her a new game that was a birthday gift.

Sarah – poetry.

Scott – divisibility rules

12:25

Scott, Brian & Casey are playing Tonka Construction on the computer. I’m doing Latin with Sarah. Conor & Clare are playing on the floor.

12:55

Clare crawled into the kitchen during the Latin lesson – big distraction. Sar couldn’t/wouldn’t do the exercises, so we analyzed one complicated sentence, then called it quits. Now I’m trying again for Clare’s nap, writing sideways in bed as we nurse. Sink and laundry still untouched. I should think about lunch, shouldn’t I? I left Scott with a penmanship verse and some poems to browse. Didn’t do much of anything educational with B&C so far today – time is running out, since they burn out early and today is baseball practice. Scott needs geography, science, history. Religion wouldn’t hurt, either, though they get a lot of informal instruction and example in that area.

1:05

Clare is asleep! But she’s still nursing and I can’t get away yet without waking her.

1:08

Okay, she’s soundly out and I’m free! I decide to take a few minutes to fix my hair – call it sanity preservation. Kids are all quiet downstairs though I doubt any school is happening!

PS – blowdryer is missing. Thanks, Sarah. Yes, it's been three hours and my hair's still wet. I have very thick hair.

1:20

Well, at least the front half of my hair looks nice now. I’m going to order the kids to do a "ten-second tidy" while I decide on lunch.

2:00

Lunch is on the table. Boys are eating grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzels. I’ll be eating three pieces of scrapple as soon as they’re fried hard enough for my liking. The last x minutes were spent emptying and loading the dishwasher, and washing up the sinkful of dishes. During that time, the kids took all their Easter candy out, spread it all over the living room floor to sort it, then LEFT IT THERE when lunch was ready. Their teamwork was incredible, though.

PS – Conor hid a hard-boiled egg inside a plastic one and put it in the candy bag, so maybe it’s a good thing they sorted the candy before too long!

I don’t remember smiling yet today. Brian told me yesterday that I don’t smile very much. That really hurt and I’m going to work on it. I’m going to make dinner (quiche) while I eat. Also a pumpkin pie, since my DH requested one. Why not? The oven’s on anyway. Mind you, this is extremely atypical for me!

2:30

It’s only 2:30??????????????? I’ve eaten and I’m still making quiche – little hands kept snitching the broccoli I had prepared, so I had to prepare more. Kids have cleaned up candy and are now playing computer and watching TV.

2:55

B&C wandered in and are now mixing pumpkin pie with me. I’m not a custard pie baker but I hope for their sake it turns out well. I’m sitting down for a few minutes now. PS – Conor’s been running around in his underwear for a few hours now for some reason.

3:15

A little electronic solitaire, a couple books for Conor, now I’m building puzzles with him. Quiche is not done yet because our oven is slow. The 3 oldest kids are still playing a computer game.

4:30

Quiche done, pie going in. I think it’s going to be a flop – too soupy. I watched last night’s movie again while I got all the laundry folded. Baby got up at 4:00.

5:15

Drove to baseball to see if it was cancelled by rain or not. Sarah went to Brianna’s house rather than hang out in the car at the ball field for an hour.

5:30

Cancelled!!!!!! We visit with grandparents for a while instead.

6:30

Scott and I went to library for something new and exciting to read.

7:00

Retrieved BC from grandparents’ house and went home.

7:15

Daddy’s home! We actually spend some time in recreation together!

8:30

I give the boys a warning that bedtime will commence shortly. Scott is very emotional and everything is upsetting him – he also feels bad that he didn’t get a good day of school done but it’s too late to change that now. Everything B&C are doing is wrong and bothering Scott!

PS - B&C declare that they never ate dinner (not true, we had quiche, which they don’t like), so I give them a bagel and chocolate milk.

8:45

Kids head upstairs to dress for bed, brush teeth, and fight. Dad yells – boys all get into bed. Sarah is just getting home from Brianna’s.

9:30

After a little talking, I say final (I hope) goodnight, and warn Brian not to repeat last night or he’ll be sleeping in the hallway.

9:40

I nurse baby to sleep, say goodnight to Sarah, go down to look for this log, and do a laundry transfer – dry laundry to basket, wet laundry to dryer, dirty laundry to washer.

10:00

Found the log!!! I’m going to spend some computer time now typing it up. Today was an okay school day for Sarah, not-so-good for Scott, B&C were played with and read to, and the house is fairly neat.

11:00

After several trips to the bathroom, Sarah came downstairs and said we were keeping her awake.

11:30

Clare woke up crying, and Sarah went up to get her.

12:08 a.m.

Sarah and Clare are still awake downstairs. I’m going to print this out and then go to bed. Hopefully Clare will cooperate!

PS – the pumpkin pie was fine.

How We Homeschool: The Schoolroom

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 ( a post that was written but never completed)

All during Christmas break I kept telling myself I would have time to rearrange and reorganize our schoolroom before it was time to return to business as usual. Pure delusion, what with regular daily life PLUS the Christmas holiday PLUS needing to devote time and energy to emptying and cleaning two houses that needed to be sold.

We resumed lessons on Tuesday, but before anyone else got moving, I tore into the schoolroom with gusto. After nearly two hours, I was satisfied. The biggest issue was that Regina kept getting into the cabinet where all the paper is stored, leaving the slippery floor littered with sheets and sheets of looseleaf, printer paper, and cardstock. Dangerous, wasteful AND annoying. I had to make that cabinet less accessible to her while still accessible to us.

I feel so blessed to have a dedicated schoolroom.  Our old house was much smaller; all the work was done at the dining room table, and I gave up a much-needed coat closet to store books and supplies.  Our current house has a bedroom on the second floor that's known as a walk-thru - you have to pass through it to continue on to the third floor.  Since nobody wants such a semi-private bedroom, we turned it into the schoolroom.

Here's where most of the schoolwork takes place. I love how the room is flooded with sunlight all morning and afternoon.

The large maps on the wall are where we play nerf dart geography.

The other half of the room. The paper cabinet is now in the corner, where I can restrict access with my chair. The copier and laptop sit atop the cabinet. The laptop is falling apart by degrees, it's no longer technically "portable."  We use it in the schoolroom now for educational videos and websites, as well as blogging.  I can blog on the tablet, but it's so much faster to type with two hands.

There are two smaller work surfaces by the window for me to banish allow a child or two to work independently, or gives them a place to color and cut while we're using the big table.


This corner closet is largely a catch-all, but I do keep art supplies and my sewing machine in the bottom.  The higher shelves are the place where I put things I don't want anyone to touch without permission.

The other corner bookshelf, behind the door, is where I keep all the books that are in current rotation.  Each kid has half a shelf where their books are stacked, and they are required to  put their books back on the shelves when they are finished.  There are also several books and resources that I want to use soon, so I keep them here in plain view so I don't forget all about them.  That happens all the time occasionally, you know.

The back of the door has a shoe organizer that I use to hold a little bit of everything - envelopes, extra glue sticks, things that need to be kept out of reach, like sharpies and post-its.  

Picture Parade: Contentment

I know this is a trivial issue, but in my house it's a long-standing source of aggravation.

This picture depicts how I prefer my school table carousel to look:  well-stocked with scissors, pencils, scissors, pens, rulers, sharpeners and scissors.  We can't have enough scissors in this house.  Unfortunately, it only looked like this for the few minutes it took me to snap the picture.  Most of time, there are safety scissors strewn throughout the house - bathroom, yard, living room, bedrooms, under beds - and when we need a pair (or three), it's like a game of "Now Where Did I See That Pair of Scissors?"

At least they're (mostly) out of the cutting-hair-and-clothing stages.

Do You See What I Am Dealing With Here?

Check out what I found in Conor's science book.

2:33 p.m., Any Given Weekday

This picture speaks volumes, if you know what to listen for.   

I’ve been homeschooling my kids since 1998.  None of the children who are currently homeschooled, with the exception of Clare for her kindergarten year, have ever been in traditional school.  12 days ago, (on Thursday the 15^th) Clare, who is 10, faced off with me and told me she doesn’t want to do her schoolwork.  This was not a news flash.  We'd been having issues with her cooperation for almost two years.  She was just being honest - sassy, but honest - but I was tired of threatening her and telling her how much easier she had it with me rather than in school, tired of her draining me of time and energy and enthusiasm.  Within a few minutes I had called the principal and made an appointment, and before she knew what hit her, she started school last Monday.  I cried about the decision for 2 straight days, and she cried every day in school for the first week. 

It’s Tuesday of the second week now, and both of us have stopped crying, although we still both have mixed feelings about this development. We are spending the same amount of time on after-school homework that we used to spend on all of her daily work put together.  She misses being home, being with her sisters, spending time with me, and she regrets losing the freedom we used to enjoy. She's sorry that she didn't cooperate more.  She wishes she could just come back home.  I don’t think she’s learned enough of a lesson yet.  We agreed that she has to finish out the year, but that seems so terribly long to me.  I want her to do well in school, but not so well that she loves it and never wants to be homeschooled again. 

And yet, without her, I’m getting a lot more done with my other kids.  The younger girls are getting regular lessons every day now, where before I often ran out of time.  Noelle will be 5 on the day after Christmas, and she has already progressed to the point where she can read 75% of everything she sees.  The “reading” switch has been turned on in her head, and now she can’t stop herself!!!    And Theresa, who is almost 8, still wasn’t reading fluently, but in just the past 2 weeks she’s made huge improvements.  The small increase in time we're put in has already reaped huge dividends.

Because Clare needs to get up early, all the girls have been put to bed earlier so that the house quiets down enough for her to be able to sleep.  She is notoriously nosy, and can't settle down if they're being noisy in the hall or the next bedroom.

There's another bonus I should mention - since Clare needs to catch her bus at 7:18 a.m., we have been getting up at 6:30 a.m. every weekday. I have never been a morning person, so this has opened up a whole world of extra time that I didn't even know existed!  (Just kidding, but only barely)  I have several hours of the peace I crave before the baby and the twins wake up.  If we get cracking, Brian and I can complete his courseload by 10:00 a.m., instead of us just getting up and moving by the same time.  I still haven't figured out how to work in all the cooking and cleaning too, but hey, it's only been 7 days.  Give me time.

So here I am, caught in this conundrum.  Because Clare is in school, I have this extra time.  If she were back at home, my motivation to get up early would diminish severely.  We'd probably fall back into our late bed/late rise pattern.  But having her in school was my last resort, and it was never part of my dream for our family.  All of the things she likes about school are the social aspects:  recess, seeing her friends, lunches.  There is tuition to be paid - we're paying for her to socialize?  Why is it that the school has her for seven hours during the day, but they send her home with two hours of homework that she can't even do, because she didn't understand the teachers' explanations?  If she can sit with me and do two hours of someone else's assignments, why couldn't she have just cooperated with me in the first place??  Then there's the endless fundraising, school uniforms, gym uniforms, new shoes, yada yada yada.  And did I mention that it's no coincidence that by the end of her very. first. week.  she and several others in our family had caught cold? 

There's no neat ending to this post, just a jagged hole in our day that used to be filled with Clare, for better or for worse.  And every day at 2:32, we go to meet the bus that brings her back to us.  They miss her, I miss her, and you can see how happy they all are for her to be back.

Postscript 10/21/11


That "cold" she caught turned out to be pneumonia.  She missed the next eight days of school and lost 9 pounds, but she's fully mended now.

Pooped.

This week was Fire Safety Day Camp, a free service that is a Godsend to homeschoolers like me, needing to fullfill the PA state regulation that I teach my kids fire safety.    I mean, of course I teach my kids when and how to dial 911, why NOT to play with matches, and stop, drop and roll.

But Fire Safety Day Camp?   What a tailor-made opportunity to rack up a few free school hours and beef up the portfolio! 

Except, we're not morning people.  These three days of camp are going to take a serious toll on us.  This morning we were up at 7:30 (brutal), at camp by 9:00 (arduous), and had to pay attention for 3 hours (strenuous).  And we have to do it three days in a row (unthinkable)!  After camp, it was a stop to have lunch with Daddy; forays at 1, 2, 3, 4 stores; and a visit with Grandma.  

Though there was lots of complaining from various factions throughout the day, Regina was a real trooper.  Her only problem was that she never had a chance to take that solid nap she so strongly requires.

  

Finally, after 8 hours out and about, we landed safely back in our crib.    (This is why we don't participate in many homeschool field trips.  A two-hour day camp turned into a three-hour camp, which turned into an all-day affair).  We headed straight for my room, which boasts both AC and television, and rested while we cooled off.  Now we're waiting for Regina to wake up so we can hit the pool before it closes.

Hmmm. 

We may be waiting a while.

   

 

Baby's first Robeez.  We chose brown because she's on the verge of crawling, standing and walking.  Hopefully the dirt and scuffs won't show so much.

Favorite Subjects.

I bet you thought I was going to write about the twins. They are usually my favorite subjects. Or Regina. No, I'm talking about my favorite subject in school. Homeschool, that is.

Math.

I don't remember it being my favorite subject when I was going through school, although I did get decent grades and managed to make it all the way through a statistics course in college. But somewhere along the last 12 years, it has become my favorite subject. I love teaching it to the younger kids, and I love re-learning it with the older kids.

Brian recently went through a few chapters in Algebra with the slope-intercept formula. That was all new to me. I must have daydreamed or dozed through it in Geometry class as a sophomore, but after a few tries I had it down even better than he did.

Now we are working with equations, and it's sort of pathetic how much I am enjoying myself. *There are 39 coins made up of pennies and dimes. The total value is $1.83. Write two equations, one for the number of coins, and one for the value. *Find three consecutive integers such that five times the first integer plus twice the second is equal to six times the third.

He worked in his book, I worked on the pink sheet. I won.

I love teaching/learning Latin, and grammar.

I love sharing my knowledge of Spanish with the kids, although we're doing Latin as our foreign language instead.

I love sharing classical music, poetry and art, and teaching them to draw.

Teaching them to read can be tedious, but I love the moment of discovery when they find they can actually READ.

I love learning history, though slogging through textbooks can be a drag.

I hate teaching spelling. Too tedious for me. I was one of those natural spellers, and I can't relate well to someone to whom it doesn't come as easily.

I love science, especially the higher sciences.

I love teaching the kids how to write in cursive. I'm neutral on teaching them how to print. I hate teaching them how to write compositions. This is probably because I'm so opinionated that if they're not writing the way I would do it, I sort of automatically think it's wrong.

I hate craft projects.

I love teaching them to touch-type.

I love showing them their way around a kitchen.

In general, I just love those "light-bulb" moments when I have found just the right way to explain something to them so that it makes perfect sense. I love when their enthusiasm for a subject finally measures up to my own.

Sometimes - quite often, actually - I get so discouraged with homeschooling that I just want to give up. Making this list has been therapeutic in that regard, reinforcing some of my reasons for wanting to homeschool in the first place.

I Can't Think of a Good Title for This Post

I have a confession: I can't stand doing crafts with the kids. It always turns into a disaster. It wasn't always like this. I start out with high hopes, but invariably it turns into a free-for-all.

Whether we're making candles or finger-painting or making a foam Christmas tree, simultaneously there's always one kid who can't do it without help, one kid who can't do it without help but does it anyway, one kid who rushes through and is (poorly) done in five minutes, one kid who still isn't done two hours later, and, of course, the twins, too young to include but too old to be left out.

If it's a food craft, they're clamoring and fighting and crying ,"You said I could mix it!" or "I wanted to pour the chocolate chips in!"

And then there's me, rushing from kid to kid, trying to give three different sets of instructions at the same time while stopping one twin from giving the other a safety-scissor haircut, all in a state somewhere between frenzy and nervous breakdown.

Sometimes, just to liven things up, the occasional fight breaks out. And towards the end, they see something shiny, and I'm left cleaning up the glitter or pumpkin guts or picking up 300 twisted tie-dye rubber bands (and sporting tie-dyed hands for a week because I forgot to put on gloves), all the while wondering why I even bother in the first place. It completely wears me out for the rest of the day, and I usually need a nap and a heavy dose of solitude when it's all over.

It makes me wonder if I'm really cut out to be a homeschooling mom after all.

Having said all that, today we made rice krispy treats together.

Backstory: The last time we went to the salon, the stylist had a box of krispy treats and gave each of the girls one. Today we stopped in briefly, and as we were leaving, Natalie dug in her heels, started hopping up and down, and howling "I want a bar! I want a bar!" Of course, I had no idea what she meant.

Natalie hopped and howled all the way to the car, until Clare remembered the krispy treats from last time. So instead of scolding her or threatening her or any of those other things parents do in public to a tantrum kid, I tried to explain to a two-year-old that the treats were all gone. Didn't work. Then I told her that if she stopped crying, we would stop at the store and get marshmallows to make krispy treats at home. Thankfully, this did work.

They were very good in the store and for the 3-minute ride to our house. And true to my word, I proceeded to start making krispy treats, but I was dreading the usual clamoring chaos until I had a stroke of genius. This wouldn't work for every craft, but it worked like a charm this time.

I counted out 10 marshmallows per kid (next time I'll let them each count out 10), and let them drop them one by one into the melted butter. They ran laps around the downstairs until the microwaving was done. Then I showed them, to their amazement, the huge spongy mass that now was where their marshmallows had been.

Then - first stroke of genius - instead of scooping 6 cups of krispies one at a time out of the box, I scooped all six cups into large bowl and put 3 smaller measuring scoops into the bowl. Then I appointed the oldest, Clare, to be Designated Stirrer, because that marshmallow stuff is so goopy that she's the only one who could handle it.

Next - second stroke of genius - I took them out to the front walk so that any spills would be cleaned up by the wildlife detail instead of on my kitchen floor. And it worked beautifully! Clare was satisfied because she had an important job, using three scoopers meant that everybody got adequate turns to add krispies, and the smaller scoops meant that it took a good, long time to add them all.




Even more fun was that Mom let everybody eat handfuls of the sticky, gooey mess right out of the mixing bowl.



Remember that, kids. Your mom is awesome.