P is for puff balls, Piglet, princesses and peacock.
Archive | August 2013
Teaching Among Tornadoes: 5 Tips for Homeschooling with Preschoolers Present
My Two Tornadoes- don’t let their small size fool you! They are capable of great and mighty deeds.
This year, I have a first grader, a kindergartner, a preschooler and a toddler. My preschooler is charming and sweet and affectionate, full of love and life and energy. And he is Trouble! A massive tornado sized force for destruction and noise and rowdiness. His little brother is working hard to follow in his footsteps. So I’ve been madly researching on the internet, attending Homeschool Conference seminars and brainstorming for ways to occupy my preschoolers so I can get some schoolwork squeezed into my day.
My Four Great Kiddos
Here are a few tips I’ve picked up and intend to try this year:
1. Plan Ahead- Prepare activities for the little ones, gather the supplies needed and have them at hand. There are so many “Busy Bag” activity ideas on Pinterest, it boggles my mind. Also, have certain toys only taken out at school time so they remain special.
Special time with my preschooler
2. Start the Day with Preschool Time– When Mom is teaching, all of her attention is fixed on her school-aged children. The poor preschoolers have to hear all day “Go play,” which of course means, “Go away.” So, starting the day with quality time with the preschooler gives him that attention he needs. Books, games, puzzles, and play are perfect for this time.
3. Include Preschoolers in the Activities- Make an extra copy of the worksheet for the preschooler to scribble on when the older ones are working. On the first day of school, the preschooler should also receive new school supplies. When we time travel, he comes with us! When I stamp my Special Agent’s passports, you bet I’m stamping his. He can play on the floor with legos while I’m reading and join us for nature walks.
Naptime for the little guy
4. Utilize Naptime- This tip is the hardest one for me to tackle. Naptime is my time to unwind. However, today and yesterday, our mornings were so difficult with the little ones that I did use naptime for literature and phonics. It is nice to be able to focus with little to no interruption. Perhaps I will compromise. Half of nap can include school time and half of nap is mine. All mine!
5. Accept and Embrace the Season– I got this advice a lot. This time with small children is relatively brief (even though yes, it seems interminable) and I need to accept that I will not get as much done in this season of life. There will be interruptions and days when I will not accomplish what I wish to accomplish. I need to slow down and take the time to disciple the hearts of my children- all my children. This is really fine as we are only doing first grade and kindergarten- hardly time consuming years. In fact, the free time, the fun things we can do while the preschoolers are with us, and the relationships built with the younger siblings is probably better education for them than all the academics in the world.
Preschooler and Toddler Fun
Monday Musings: Children, Consequences, & Forgiveness
The Recognition of Josephy by his Brothers by Peter von Cornelius
I do not know if it is the age or the stress of the last 6 weeks, but my almost-three-year-old has been particularly unruly for the past few weeks. He’s been getting into things he knows he shouldn’t and loudly vocal with his disapproval of certain activities and decisions. He climbs, throws, dumps, pushes, bonks, steals, shoves, destroys. A little over a week ago, he decided to throw- with a sufficient amount of force to cause utter devastation- a toy train at our two year old television (this is actually fairly new for us, as that television replaced a big old box TV that was at least 20 years old). Now we don’t have cable or satellite or an antenna or anything like that, but we do use our television to stream Netflix, to play our Wii, and to play DVDs. And at this time, with so recently dealing with un- and underemployment and then a move, and with expensive dental care and car repair needs in our immediate future, we do not have the finances to replace it. I felt very angry with my son after this little episode and my personal sense of justice was offended. He needs to pay for his crime, I thought. But as I said it, a still small voice reminded me of a vital truth that I had forgotten in the heat of the moment. Of course, Jesus has already paid for all crimes. Justice has already been served.
So I’ve been thinking lately about children, consequences, and forgiveness. Because as a parent, I must both train my children in righteous living- which includes discipline and consequences- and also forgive them and show God’s glorious grace to them. Most of the time, this is easy to do. My love for them and my understanding of their young stage of life and immature thought processing helps me to easily forgive and not desire revenge and therefore execute appropriate consequences. But sometimes with these bigger things or often on bad days when I’m tired or grouchy or stressed, it is more challenging to keep a good balance. Sometimes, it honestly is difficult to forgive. With how this little son of mine has been behaving lately and the high cost of the item he destroyed, I found I needed a little refresher of God’s opinion on forgiveness and discipline.
1. Forgive Fully- as Christ forgave us
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ~Colossians 2:13-14 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, fogiving each other, as the Lord has fogiven you, so you also must forgive . ~Colossians 3:12-13Christ canceled our debt by nailing it to the cross. Therefore, any debts against me have been paid in full.
2. Forgive Every Time– no matter how many times a week, a day, and hour offense is committed
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin agains-t me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven.”Just this morning, while my husband was putting hot oatmeal into bowls for the children, my little preschool rascal absconded with the just-opened-cannister of oatmeal. Next thing we knew, it was empty, having been liberally scattered throughout his room, on the floor and the beds and in the crib. While I was cleaning up that mess, he happily dumped almost the entire shaker of cinnamon-sugar into his oatmeal, rendering it unedible. I removed the shaker from his possession before he could finish his self-appointed task and went to finish cleaning up the oatmeal. When I returned, he had poured all of the rest of my special pure maple syrup (that I use a teaspoon at a time) into my uneaten bowl of oatmeal rendering it also unedible. Before I took the kid’s head off, I tossed him in his room for a time out.
It took a few minutes to cool off. I went and talked to him about not dumping food out and he apologized. And then 90 minutes later at snack time, he dumped his whole bowl of applesauce out onto the table. Thus, it was very important that I read this verse to myself today. I needed the reminder!
3. Forgive Because God Intends it for Good
…”Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you….” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but GOd meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” ~Genesis 50:17, 19-20Joseph’s brothers sold Joseph into slavery, hoping to get rid of him forever because of their jealousy. They meant great evil to their brother. My preschooler does not –generally– mean evil towards me, he just wishes selfishly to do as he pleases. Even so, God intends all of these things for good. He will work all things together for the good of those who love him! (Romans 8:28) This morning’s fiasco called our attention to the fact that our kids are likely starved for our attention- with the stressful and very busy season of moving, we haven’t had our normal routines or that much time for individual attention. My husband and I have decided to schedule in regular dates with each of our children once a month. There was a special Daddy/Z-urchin date this evening to the park. Good came out of our struggles.
With our television disaster, I saw God’s gracious hand at work. I was immensely thankful that He did not allow its destruction while we were in the process of moving. We needed it often to keep the kids occupied while we were rushing to pack up and then unpack our home. It came at a time when we honestly needed a time of detox from watching videos. It came the weekend before the first week of school, when I was going to need their attention. Not having the TV as a temptation to either them or me was probably the best thing. And, to give you the happy ending to this story: my generous in-laws arrived at our house this past weekend with a birthday gift- a new TV! We plan to mount it on the wall to discourage further attempts to destroy it.
4. Discipline for their Benefit
They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. ~Hebrews 12:10-11This was the point that I spent the most time pondering. How to know that the discipline I hand out is appropriate when I am steaming mad about it? This passage is contrasting God’s discipline with that of human fathers. But I figure, we should model God’s discipline as best as we can. And it’s true- we don’t discipline out of a sense of revenge or retribution, but out of a desire that they grow up well. We want them to live righteously, responsibly, and at peace with God and man. This is the test for my motivations when disciplining my children: Does it benefit them?
I do want to teach my child to not dump food or other things out. That wastes food and money. He does need to be taught wise stewardship. So, food that he dumps does not get replaced. Food that he liberally seasons with a great excess of cinnamon is not replaced. His minor pangs of hunger won’t hurt him in the long run and lessons can be learned in the meantime. Even at amost-three-years-old.
I also want to teach my child not to destroy property. He destroyed an expensive piece of property that was not his. I do realize that my very brief daydream of taking sharp shears to his blankie was not an appropriate discipline, aimed at benefitting him. Though I admit to indulging the thought for a moment. But it was appropriate that he did not get to watch any videos for the whole week. He broke the television, these are the natural consequences- even though technically, he could have watched a video on my computer. Every time he asked to watch a video was an opportunity to discuss with him what not to do to televisions.
I know that this is the age for constant activity and for rebellion and the first noisy bids for independence. The Terrible Twos and the Tyrannical Threes, right? So a daily dose of God’s word to fill me up with patience and grace and forgiveness is necessary for me to do a good job in training my precious children. It is the most important job I’ll ever have. And thankfully, God’s grace and forgiveness is there for me when I fail. I really do need it!
Memorable Moments: First Week of School
Last week was our first week of school and we had lots of fun! I continued to ignore all of the boxes and just focused on school. I’m hoping that as I settle into a routine, I’ll have a bit more time for things like unpacking. We’ll see.
Top Five Memorable Moments of this Week:
1. Our Time Traveling Adventures with Leif the Lucky. I gave the agents the file that needed a bit more information. So they were charged with the mission to go back in time and find out more about this mystery man. They had to scan their fingerprint into the machine (a fingerprint scanning mood app on my iPhone) and then they got into the the time machine. I made sure to change my hair and put on sunglasses as the agents were traveling in the box so that when they came out I was a little different. And I offered them coats and blankets as we were getting on a boat (our couch) in the Northern Atlantic Ocean (our living room)! Princess K was enthusiastic the whole time. X-man took a little warming to the idea every day. He would say, “Mommy, I know you’re our mommy and we are not actually going anywhere.” I soldiered on as if he had said nothing. By the time I was ducking out of the way of waves and pointing and laughing at big buckets of porridge, he was in.
Looking over their files and scanning their fingerprint to be let into the super secret lab that holds our time machine.
Time Travel Time!
2. X-man’s utter delight with Math. He is his father’s son.
3. My extremely competitive first grader’s ridiculously long losing streak in the Right Start Math game, “Swim to Ten.” Princess K beat him the first game and then decided to stop playing. I then stepped in and played many, many rounds so that he could have a chance to win. It was a good time to disciple him in how to lose and then discuss with him strategies for the game. When he finally won he was elated and I was very relieved.
4. My kids’ enthusiasm in discovering “notebooking”. They absolutely loved drawing pictures about what we read and they loved telling me and then their daddy all about it. It was awesome! Great learning is happening here- I love it.
Drawing the storms Leif encountered at sea
Working on their science notebook
5. Playing “Peekaboo!” with this cutie pie (and then kissing those lips! I cannot resist!):
“Peekabee!”
Homemade Alphabet Book: O
O is for Olive green & Ostrich.
First Day of School 2013
Today was our first day of school for this year! This past week, I ignored the boxes and worked hard to get things all ready to start school today. It wasn’t perfect- I had hoped to get a chore chart created and I had hoped to have my library books here today (I am used to libraries being open for more days and longer hours than they are around here), but life- and therefore also the first day of school- is not perfect.
Last week when I was typing up my goals for the year, I thought I’d ask the kids what goals they might have. So I took each older child aside and asked them about what they would like to learn or accomplish this year in school. X-man wants to keep learning more about math and improve in drawing. Princess K wants to learn to read, learn to draw (specifically flowers), and learn how to bake cupcakes. Since discussing these goals, my princess has asked daily if we are starting school today. She has been so excited. So it was wonderful today to be able to answer “Yes!”
In our new house, our kitchen/dining area is quite large. So we have the dining table on one side and the schoolroom on the other side. It is quite cozy with a fireplace and everything. And it is quite convenient with the kitchen right there. We had the basic furniture already in place, but all the school stuff and the wall decorations and tools we put up last night when they went to bed. So when they woke up this morning, the schoolroom had been transformed!
Our schoolroom is all ready to go for our first day!
We started the day with our Bible lesson about David- and we had a great discussion afterward about obedience, salvation, and grace. We sang (and X & K helped me come up with hand motions for) “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” Then we did our chores, had Preschool Time (more about that later), and finished getting ready for the day.
Then it was time for Special Agent Training Registration. This year, we will be studying American History, so I decided that we would be American Secret Agents that specialize in time travel. (A super secret government program!) Today, our agents-in-training got fingerprinted and pictures taken for their passports. They were issued Top Secret Files and other supplies that we labeled with their Agent Identity Number. (It was fun!)
Special Agent Michelle, in charge of training the new recruits. Their files and the registration table.
Passport/Badge photos (and a cute picture of Shortstop thrown in there for fun)
Agent Training Registration
After we had that fun, we moved on to more traditional school activities. We did copywork and math and science. During “Registration,” they received a small United States cutout. They will be receiving stars for special services to their country (or daily school tasks) and will receive special rewards when they have earned a star in each state. They also found a pez dispenser in their supply box. Today, when they worked cheerfully and remained on task with me, I allowed them to have one pez candy for a reward.
School time!
Pez & Stickers- great rewards!
Altogether, it was a great first day of school! Tomorrow, we will get our books from the library and have our first time traveling adventure. My husband made this time machine for us:
Our Secret Time Machine- awesome, right?
Our K/1st Curriculum Plan
I can’t believe it has been a whole year since we started on this homeschool adventure. Practice year completed. First official year to commence.
It has been crazy around here with trying to unpack boxes, figure out where things go all the while caring for four children, one of whom turned from baby to toddler our first day in the new house and is busy trying to make sure older brother Z-urchin doesn’t get all the glory for the trouble causing. We had a serious Cocoa-tastrophe this week and anything that he picks up he thoughtfully drops into the trashcan. That is good if it is a popsicle stick or cheese stick wrapper. Less good if it is a toy, puzzle piece, or a brother’s prized possession.
Shortstop and The Cocoa-tastrophe
Anyway, thankfully for the goal of ever starting school this year, I got the majority of my planning done in May. I do have some small adjustments to make due to the fact that we did not start on Monday, as scheduled. I hope to start the week after next. I am considering this year to be a K/1st Combo with a few preschoolers jumbled into the mix to keep everything interesting. So here are my curriculum choices/plans for this year:
Bible: New Testament Stories (my own curriculum) & missionary stories; Continue studying virtues, working on habits, memorizing verses and learning hymns
History: American History with Stories of America Volumes 1 & 2 from Simply Charlotte Mason. I will be using This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall as a reference and we will read good stories and biographies of Americans and good literature depicting the era or event according to Stories of America schedule; many book choices will be selected from my hugely helpful history literature list All Through the Ages.
Math: We will finish RightStart Level A and then begin RightStart Level B with X-man (1st grade) and do RightStart Level A with Princess K
Phonics: I have been creating my own phonics lessons based on my understanding of Charlotte Mason’s methods using the book Billy and Blaze by C.W. Anderson. I will continue these lessons with X-man and then use Frog and Toad when we finish Billy and Blaze. With Princess K, I will do these type lessons with Penny and Her Doll by Kevin Henkes (and then Penny and her Song and Penny and her Marble). We will also use The Victory Drill Book and I will use The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading as my reference and to supplement my lessons as needed.
Copywork: Delightful Handwriting from the website Simply Charlotte Mason.
Science: 106 Days of Creation Studies again, from the website Simply Charlotte Mason. We will also continue with our normal Nature Study with the Outdoor Hour Challenge or using resources from the Handbook of Nature Study blog.
Foreign Language: I would like to start teaching the kids Spanish this year and I’ve thought about getting a DVD/learning kit called Kid Start Spanish. (I better decide soon!)
Geography: Paddle-to-the-Sea and U.S. geography as it comes up in our History readings.
Art: Artist study with 6 American artists (we will read biographies about the artist’s life and study their art); we will use Usborne learning to draw books and the book Drawing with Children and take the time to learn other handicrafts as the children are interested.
Music: Composer study with 6 American composers (biographies, listening to their work). Piano lessons with daddy (and Alfred’s Basic Piano Lesson Books).
Physical Education: We will use “Kids in Motion,” (CD) “Just Dance Kids,” (Wii game) and other DVDs or games as we get them.
I also plan to read poetry and fun books (for example, I am really excited to read The Chronicles of Narnia to my kids!) this year. I also need to be sure to plan activities for Z-urchin and Shortstop as days will go much more smoothly with plans in place (more on that later).
So that’s my plan for the year! We’ll see how it works.
Trip to the County Fair
We’ve been in our new home for two weeks now and we are still plugging away at unpacking and organizing our home. Still, we’ve found time to explore our new area. On a Saturday, our second weekend here, we visited the County Fair and had a blast.
It was a glorious day and we started with eating the lunch we packed and taking a ride on the Merry-Go-Round. The kids had fun choosing exactly which animal they wanted to sit on.
Merry-Go-Round
The kids really wanted to keep riding rides, but we decided to dangle that carrot ahead of them in exchange for some good behavior while we explored the rest of the fair. So we visited the Hall of Flowers where the theme this year was “Backyard Blossoms.” The displays of flowers were spectacular. The kids- especially Z-urchin were fascinated by a bright and sparkly little train zooming around one flower exhibit. They also laughed and laughed at the man made all from garden pots and sitting on a bench.
The Flower Show
Next, we decided to go on a mission: Find the Clover Stornetta booth and obtain our free ice cream cones! My husband remembered having free Clover ice cream cones when he came to this fair as a kid with his parents, so we decided to discover if this tradition had continued. Much to everyone’s delight, it has!
Free Ice Cream and Silly Kids
We then found a building with a bunch of baby animals. We saw a baby calf, a bunch of baby piglets romping around, baby chicks and ducks and some grown up cows and horses. We also hung around the beekeeper’s tent much longer than I thought I would be comfortable with (I have a bee-phobia; my husband claims it is due to the fact that I have never been stung, but I’m not so much afraid of the sting as I am of the fact that part of the bee would remain and then I would have to do something about it). It turns out that this bee stuff was really interesting. The beekeeper told us all about the life cycle of the bee , how bees know where to go and the fact that a single bee makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its entire life. Wow! We bought a few sticks of honey- both wildflower honey and orange blossom honey. It was very interesting to taste the difference. The kids definitely liked taste testing that honey!
Finally, it was time for rides! The older kids chose to go down a monster slide together (though the ride required closed toed shoes, which Princess K was not wearing, so she had to wear her little brother’s shoes which are, coincidentally, the same size) and then go on a speeding circular ride. My daredevil daughter especially loved that one. Z-urchin chose to ride on the train ride, then a truck ride, and then a bouncing truck ride! They had a fantastic time! The rides were so exciting and I am so glad we saved those for the end.
It was a beautiful and lovely day at the fair!
Memorable Moments: Our final weeks- South America & Australia
Princess K’s Princess Party
This post is quite late. We finished up our Kindergarten year over a month ago, but have had a crazy 6 weeks. My husband got a new job in the town where he grew up (and where almost his whole family currently lives), 2 hours north of where we were living. Therefore July was filled with spending time with friends we were leaving, packing up our stuff, and hauling it all north on top of our normal celebrations of Princess K’s birthday- and beautiful party, Hubby’s birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday. We love our new place and are delighted to be so close to grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.
So even though I’m thinking more about planning and preparing for this next year (when I have a chance between all the unpacking and organizing), I want to post this final Memorable Moments about our last few weeks of Kindergarten.
Throughout the last few weeks of June, gradually and remarkably unceremoniously, we finished our “Trip Around the World” and X-man’s Kindergarten year. I did not have the kids put flags on their binders for every country we studied like I wanted to do. I did not eat food from every country we studied like I wanted to. We did not dress up and we did not make all that many crafts.
But we did read a lot of really great tales from around the world. For a practice homeschool year, I am going to go ahead and call that success.
We read stories from South America and Australia:
Picture Book of Simon Bolivar– a brief and simple introduction to the “George Washington” of South America. It was a good introduction to South America as a whole, actually, as it mentioned several countries.
Brazil:
Jabuti the Tortoise A Trickster Tale from the Amazon– a fun and colorful story about a flute playing tortoise.
The Great Kapok Tree A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest- the illustrations are beautiful and the information presented about how each rain forest creature depends on the Kapok tree is interesting, but it is not a story.
How the Night Came from the Sea A Story from Brazil- a boldly and brightly illustrated story about welcoming the night after a very, very, very long daytime.
Chile:
Mariana and the Merchild- A beautiful and sweet story of how the life of a woman is transformed by choosing to take care of a merchild for a little while until her mother can take her back.
Argentina:
My Mama’s Little Ranch on the Pampas- another fun and colorful story about two children who spend their summers at a ranch their mother owns and manages.
Australia:
Are We There Yet? -a story of a family who spends 6 months traveling around the continent of Australia, seeing many amazing things along the way. It was a good introduction to the country.
Koala Lou- A sweet little story of a mother’s unconditional love. All the kids enjoyed this story.
The Gift Stone- An enjoyable story with lovely illustrations about a girl who lives in an opal mine and finds a large opal.
And with that, we are done with X-man’s Kindergarten year! Woohoo!
Following Footprints 