Another year, another set of choices

School choices made yet again.....Out of necessity I am having to work full-time now. The girls are now going into 6th grade and 11th grade....now more than ever it is important to me that my younger daughter is surrounded by Christian teachers and support so I am attempting to find a way to send her to the local Christian school, since I am not going to home-school while working full-time.

Yes, I have heard of other moms doing it, by the way. My hours are normal day-time hours though, every day and where would she be during the day? Alone or thrown with another family- that doesn't seem fair to anyone. Praying about this, and I feel strongly that she belongs in Christian school. It will only happen if God opens these doors, so....we'll see. If that door is closed, I'm praying for peace about the public middle school or for His alternative solution, whatever that may be. He is AMAZING so I have no doubt that one way or another, He's got her covered!

Only one more year before our little guy starts kindergarten?? I would still love to homeschool him. He's already reading!!!!!!!!! My brilliant, sweet, rambunctious boy. I am not going to panic. A lot can happen in a year.

Flash forward a year....

Wow so much can change in a year. Family situation abruptly changed and it was a good thing I got that job at the library because I suddenly became a single parent. Not knowing how to homeschool while finding a job that would support us, I opted to enroll the school age kids in public school. There may have been a few other factors but the whole craziness in our life and a strong need for stability was the main reason.

I was surprised to have prayers answered by way of a different job in September working with homeschoolers. It's part-time but regular hours and worked with my daycare's availability. While extremely reluctant to even apply for this position, ultimately I humbled myself to what was clearly God's answer to my prayers; I haven't regretted it. I could have even homeschooled my daughter but I hadn't seen it in the summer as a possibility. So....just goes to show you, if you're feeling convicted to homeschool but don't see a way, He will make a way, so hang on!

So I am fully confident that soon I will be teaching my youngest children at home again. No idea how this will happen, but I'm learning I don't have to know how. I may not have a job that can fully support us financially, but it's the one I've been called to, for this time. He's provided for our needs this year somehow and I trust that He will continue to do so. It's been an amazing adventure so far.

Springtime.....

Spring.......is it just me or is it really hard to get time to actually record anything that happens in Spring? It's been a whirlwind of birthdays, field trips, Spring Break, WASL testing, and cram everything in we didn't do earlier in the school year into the last few weeks.... aak!

So the last few weeks we decided to take some mental health days and relax a whole lot more. And it's been great.

Yet it hasn't been without plenty of "school" happening- Elli knit me some cute socks, dyed some yarn, spun some yarn, has been experimenting with making drop spindles, has researched the whole dyeing process, including gardening for the express purpose of raising flowers/vegetables and herbs for creating dyes.....Plus her academy work of course. And Grace's biggest thing besides finishing Singapore 3A part 1 and 2, is that she's read over 7,000 pages since February. This includes the entire Harry Potter series (for the first time), a dozen or so books on George Washington, Martha Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, and a bunch a bunch a bunch of random chapter books. Loves to read.

So...we're relaxing. Reading. Gardening. Enjoying being with each other. Evaluating how far we've come this year and processing goal setting for next year. (Like probably dropping French unless we can get in to an actual class so she has the structure and consistency necessary to move forward.)

Anyway...school is cool. The biggest change is that I suddenly started subbing at the parent partnership we attend, which turned into a regular Thursday job, and then for the last month I've been also working at the library three days a week. So there went my time! But we're still able to make it all work with homeschooling and it's feeling pretty good. Glad the last day of class for me to teach was today! Tomorrow is the last day of onsite classes so life will settle down now. We're starting to gear up for summer. Springtime is just vanishing.....we're going to do our darndest to enjoy the last stretch though. Plant some starts (I think our seedlings died this week from lack of watering), doll up the window boxes, and maybe get a hanging basket.

ahhhhh.

Oh Happy Day!

Yesterday marked the beginning of a new week- a fresh start on our homeschooling, a chance to make a plan and get "caught up" with school, make sure we're still on target and still having fun. It's working! I don't mind getting behind a little bit sometimes- it just means refocusing on our goals and making some little adjustments. (For example, we're way behind on italic but we were just doing 3 pages a week. This week she is doing 2 pages a day every day and on Friday she'll be back to where she was scheduled to be.) Now if we never kept track and just were winging it and hoping for the best by graduation, that I'd have a problem with. Well, that just wouldn't fly in my house. If we're going to learn at home, we're going to have to have a plan to somehow tackle our many varied interests. There's just not enough time in the day to learn everything we want to know and everything we need to know....unless we plan it in.



We rented a great beginning French video from the library and watched that while I was sick. (aah yes, did you catch that? After my griping I deservingly caught the same horrid week long virus the girls had and yes, even a degree or two off and ibuprofen didn't help it from feeling miserable. Poor kids. Bad mommy! Bad mommy! lesson learned.)
(French for Kids: Learn French with Penelope and Pezi Beg. Level 1 Vol. 1 ) Et voila, we're back on target with our French. It was a great review for Grace and introduced our next section on table manners and food. We watched Pride and Predjudice on the public broadcasting station- it's so good! My older daughter's favorite. It was fun to see Grace introduced to it. Of course she thought it was boring and actually left....I think she went and got a book to read instead. She's reading Dragon Rider for the third time. We all got out our knitting or embroidery, too. These girls amaze me. I can't knit anything. I'm still trying to learn to crochet. (I've made a doll scarf, a pillow, and a doll blankie/dishcloth/swatch.) Last night my oldest (who has never attempted crochet as she is perfectly content with knitting) got into the crochet box, dug out a hook and the how-to directions, and whipped up a double-crocheted hat....I might as well throw in the towel and just let her teach me when she's completely fluent in crochet next week. I've been struggling with that book for years and just don't get it. Mary Frances's Book of Crochet and Knitting (or something like that?) was very helpful but we do not own a copy of it yet and the library needed it back. I think my problem is that I'm left handed and I forget which way I'm doing it. Sometimes I can do it right-handed, so I try to do it that way so the pictures will make sense. But other times my brain just doesn't cooperate and I'm too befuddled to understand the pictures until I switch to my left hand and try to think backwards...It's very strange. This is why I stick with sewing and embroidery. I hope to one day be as good as my children at needlework.....It'd be nice to make something special for them or for their children.

Anyway- we basically filled in a lot of time last week with reading and electives I guess, and the bare minimum for math, because you know I was the next one to catch the flu and it's only recently left our house for good I think.



Today I made a 7x table poster for the wall, with a review box on it of Grace's other problem multiplication facts. We did the multiplication to classical music cd for just the 7x table, did a fast facts sheet I pulled out of an old Saxon test book (all those warm up quizzes Elli refused to cooperate on). She completed her Singapore math lesson and exercise, two pages of Italic handwriting, completed a Latin lesson, reviewed grammar and parts of speech through Latin and later via a word problem I had her write down. She worked on her Colonial history unit study, which was reading and researching Great Men of the Faith to make a little flipbook....we read 3 chapters of the horse unit study book last night......only thing we didn't do was spelling or science. That was supposed to be done this afternoon but we got side tracked. It was kind of science though....gardening science.



Grace wants to start her own weeding business. She'll pull, for 25 cents per weed. I said I'd be her first customer if she worked on this front flower bed. I showed her where, reminded her which ones were the weeds, and she went to town. I pulled, too, since I had a feeling her price would end up pretty steep. I needed to prune the rosebush anyway. Yep, there were 46 weeds altogether. She multiplied 46 x .25, thanks to her awesome Parent Partnership math/science teacher. I've been focused on just the tables, I didn't even imagine teaching her double digit by double digit multiplication yet. But awesome, it helped her with this real life story problem! That's when she wrote it out as a "workbook story problem". I kept having her revise it so it wouldn't sound like she was selling weeds for 25 cents. (We came up with 25 cents because in Sunday School they're collecting quarters for a missions project....) She's brainstorming business names, advertising slogans, and thinking about how to make her weed identification booklet. I suggested it would be smart to show potential customers she knows the difference between a weed and a flower/herb/seedling by photographing and labeling various weeds and seedlings and putting them into a booklet to include in her presentation. She identified a couple weeds by name today but nothing impressive- dandelion and clover. We also talked about how much she's charging- 25 cents a weed might be too steep for some gardens. (Mine was $11.50 in case you didn't do the math.) Maybe come up with an hourly rate or a square foot charge? At least try it out and compare. She's going to experiment with these things the next sunny day in the garden. She's excited! She loves to garden. Also thinking about raising plants to sell, maybe as an aspect to the services she can provide through her business.



Today was a great day though. It was sunny, we worked outside, we had school in the morning, got Elli to ballet class, dropped off clothes for consigning, set up a field trip for the Hope Chest Society to go to the local embroidery/fabric shop.... I'm in love with the projects at this store! I just love them all....It was fun just looking at them, but even better we bought a few supplies to start a couple. There were definately a few panic moments during my day but they had nothing to do with homeschooling and everything to do with personal finances.



I love homeschooling and being home with the children. I hate the idea of going back to work. I may have to though, at least part-time, so I'm looking for ideas to creatively work around this without actually leaving my kids and homeschooling. Maybe we'll be able to make things work until next fall when I can hopefully get a preschool teaching position. The hours for that just work out perfectly and it's fun. But not very financially rewarding. So...we'll keep our eyes and hearts open and I'll be praying about it.

Sick of being SICK

I don't think I do well with long term illness. (My months on bedrest and recovery from surgery were the longest months of my life.) Elli's been sick since Saturday night with a fever, and now Grace just came up to me and she, too, now has a fever over 100 degrees. We're talking fever, headache, achey feeling, coughing, cold-like symptoms, no stomach flu. So it could be worse. But in some ways this frusterates me more because it's almost like they're not sick. Just a fever?? Get over it! Take your tylenol or junior strength Advil as the case may be, and get better. Yesterday I was the good mommy making homemade soup and stocking up on soup and kleenex, etc. Today I started out making snickerdoodles and with a secret plan for surprises for Valentine's day. But tis all thwarted now! No one will be feeling well enough to enjoy the cookies or the secret surprises I had planned! And I have to cancel tonight's plans to teach at church since Martin's working late and chances are Karson has it, too, and will just be passing it on to the kids in the nursery..... The girls might be fine by themselves going to bed early, but not to babysit Karson of course.



I only have 3 kids and this is not a serious illness- I really am thankful for that, because I could have a half dozen or more with the stomach flu..... I just feel so out of my element. No lessons to teach. The kids are sleeping long stretches of the day, or are cuddled up with their quilts while I read aloud to them. Minus Karson of course. He's having a hay-day with the markers, hot wheels, and stepstool. I'm still running after him a lot. But I'm getting lots of laundry done and the house is really clean. I finished this week's lessons and have gone back to ones I've missed in my Bible study. So I guess I'll take advantage of my next little window of time by organizing a drawer or a box, and getting caught up on my quilting homework.

So now is when we look for how to bless them instead of focusing on how I'm feeling a little bored with this. This doesn't say much for my attention span I guess. And you can probably guess that mercy and words of encouragement are not the highest ranking on my gifts/talents/abilities profile?? Looking for what can get checked off a list.....when this is probably not the time for that. Still..this is what homeschoolingmama does. I make favorite foods, I put on fresh sheets, I vacuum and make things pretty to try to make my little pumpkins comfortable. I pray for them.... What was wrong with Martha doing stuff? Was it the doing or was it the attitude? Mary sat there and just was..... I'm here. I'll sit with them. But I just can't sit still and do nothing. ???

Sick Days

Today we have a sick day.....and when one is sick, it seems to affect everyone else because our routine is disrupted. We went to the dr at 10, which meant leaving the house by 9:30, which meant school at 9 didn't really happen. I was too busy taking everyone's temperatures and getting ready to leave the house. At least this time I remembered the diaper bag AND food/snacks etc for Karson AND an extra outfit. (Last time I ventured out of my routine, I remembered the bag w/diapers, but forgot the food and had a hungry and tired toddler on my hands.)

Of course since we got to the dr's office and missed school for this, we found out it's just a nasty virus which will need to run its course. Well...good news that it isn't strep or walking pneumonia! So we celebrated by getting icecream for the sore throats (and a little early lunch), and I stopped by the grocery store on the way home. By the time we got home it was 12:30 and Karson was due for a nap. He was a basketcase in the grocery store. Tried shoplifting an Almond Joy at the checkout counter. Opened it even. So I bought it and am keeping it up high until I figure out how I can eat it without feeling guilty. I can't give it to him, that'd be rewarding him for misbehavior, wouldn't it? anyway- we were both ready for nap. Elli did take a nap and before Grace went to find her Gameboy, Webkinz, or a book, I decided I should probably address the whole school thing with her. Except we needed to unload groceries and I was going to make a monster batch of spaghetti sauce....So for home economics 101, she helped unload groceries, which does count since she is still learning why I put certain items in their particular places. Then we made the spaghetti sauce together.

When she found an empty box, she asked if she could use it for a craft project. It was going to be a home for her horse webkinz, so I suggested it be a Horse Habitat. What would a horse like and need in a place to live? A real one, not in Webkinz world. So we turned it into a school project: I read aloud a couple chapters of Brighty of the Grand Canyon while she worked.

Then we practiced her spelling. I turned her challenge words into cards for the Spelling Bee game we have, which we then played for a while. That's about all the official school we had today. She read a lot (Dragon Rider) and helped with the spaghetti sauce (for future recipes) and tonight's dinner of Ginger Carrot Soup with homemade bread. She made a checklist for how to clean the bathroom. Not really any math today. No grammar. Exceptin that we wasn't talkin lak theese. So technically, we study grammar every day, by the speech we use in daily conversation! We did read some blogs of friends in Africa and enjoyed some cultural insights. So we had a little social studies today, too. And now, I'm happy to say, school is done and kids are in bed mostly asleep.

Maybe tomorrow will be a more "offically" productive day. I really like the real school stuff we do. The science unit study involves the microscope this week.......if we ever get to it!!! Of course, it would be even more fun if we HAD a microscope, but we have cool books about the microscope and cool websites to visit and we'll be keeping an eye out for them when we're out and about. Someone must have one we could look at....

Celebrate!

Grace finished Singapore Math 3A today! I was so excited she made it through the workbook. The last section was kind of tough (342 divided by 4 for example) but she got through the long division. Now as we celebrate I realize that the next book is not in fact 3B but that 3A was divided into a part 1 and a part 2!! :( Whoops. So does this mean we're a semester behind?? Well so what I guess. She does math in the workbook at home almost every day (minus our 2 parent partnership class days). Some of the work in the new book will be on measurements and fractions and therefore a welcome change to the multiplication and division. So some sections will go fast I think. If not...we'll relax. Better to get all the multiplication and division facts and other math concepts down solid than race through for the sake of finishing a book "on time". Besides, when I went through with Sonlight (online) the curriculum we were intending to order, it cautioned me against 3A and 3B for 3rd grade. I thought it was a mistake at the time since she breezed through 2A and B last year. But now I'll just take that as a little validation for taking a relaxed approach through the program this year.

Today I have a sick big kid (Elli). Grace is such a helper though. This little equestrian lover has made herself a fleece saddle blanket, strapped it on with rope, then fitted herself with a big stuffed horse's bridle, made herself reins out of fingerknitting, and is busying herself as a "delivery horse" for her poor sister. (She made her a jam/bread sandwich and had me fix it to her back on a napkin before heading out of the kitchen.) Well...Gracie did finish her math book (completing 1 1/2 assignments today) so I'm allowing this playtime. After lunch though, it's back to Colonial unit study. If Karson ever goes back to sleep after his 4 hour morning nap....His ear infections are back, too. So maybe this will be a day when we just celebrate math being done and the rest of the day is independent reading and stuff. Not sure how to count Grace's horse stuff. Doesn't exactly fit under my "Horse Unit Study" category.....does it? :) Maybe we'll go with "Horse Unit Study" instead of Colonial after lunch since apparently she's in the mood for horses.